
4 o 

6"' " 






















LETTERS FROM ACROSS THE SEA 




AT THE BASE OF THE COLLOSSI THEBES 
The Author and Donkey-boy 



LETTERS 

FROM ACROSS THE SEA 
1907-1908 



BY 
FREDERICK NORTON FINNEY 




PHILADELPHIA 
J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY 

MCMIX 



-F5 



COPYRIGHT. 1909, BY FREDERICK NORTON FINNEY 



AUa 24 1909 



THESE LETTERS WERE WRITTEN TO MY 
FOUR CHILDREN DURING MT JOURNET- 
INGS IN 1907 AND 1908, AND TO THEM 
THIS BOOK IS MOST AFFECTIONATELY 
DEDICATED 



FOREWORD 

This is not a guide-book. Hand-books of travel are 
useful in their place but uncommonly dull reading. 
These are not the letters of a man who saw a lot of 
things for the first time and forthwith conceived that 
he had discovered them and must needs reveal them to 
others. Of such books there are not a few — in point of 
fact too many save from the standpoint of the printer. 

These are the letters of a cultured, far-travelled man 
to members of his own family, written with that inti- 
macy which involves freedom and candor and with the 
intent of revealing to some extent his heart, mind, and 
soul to absent loved ones. They are also of interest be- 
cause they form a viewpoint of one who in his time has 
played many parts in the development of his own coun- 
try along the lines of greatest resistance. The captains 
of industry in this country are of two kinds : those who 
take a wholly objective view of life and those others 
who possess the introspective mind. To accomplish any 
great deed it is necessary to be gifted with imagination, 
but many possess it for mere material purposes. I 
think any one who reads these letters will note that the 
^vriter has the power of critical analysis in an unusual 

[vii 



degree; that he sees beneath the surface of things and 
has found richness in the Old World because he took 
riches of the mind with him. 

Some men simply see stones and others find in them 
a sermon. Some find in the running brooks only possi- 
bilities of commercial development and others read there 
a book. In the last analysis, we get just as much out of 
life as we put into it. I think that these letters with all 
their charm of personal intimacy, their keenness of per- 
ception, and their largeness of view betray an unusual 
literary quality. This is because the writer thinks 
clearly. No other equipment is necessary. It is the 
beginning and ending of style. The reader will note 
here some new angles of perspective although they cover 
for the most part main-travelled roads. He will be 
interested not in the things themselves so much as in the 
point of view of the writer. It is the personal note that 
gives them charm and value, and human personality lies 
at the bottom of our interest in everything. 

It is interesting to me that my old time friend who 
has spent so many years in the engineering problems 
of this country should have found time to keep in touch 
with those movements, those influences and institutions 
wliich make for the highest culture; that illumination 
and inspiration have followed him and possessed him 
so that he is enabled fully to enjoy a vacation — some- 
thing few busy men in this world are able to do 
because they have crucified themselves upon the cross of 
materialism. 

viii] 



This seemingly unnecessary foreword is written 

simply that one may begin this book with confidence, 

knowing well that it will be finished with satisfaction. 

Books of travel are apt to be slush. This is a book of 

revelations. 

Joseph M. Rogers. 

Philadelphia, August 15, 1909. 



AUTHOR'S PREPARATORY NOTE 

It seems proper, and as a danger signal necessary, 
to say to the reader upon opening this book, and to avoid 
any mental shock that should overtake the careless one 
who might take it up by accident and find himself in- 
volved before becoming sufficiently hardened to stand 
the consequences, that this in no sense is a guide-book or 
a compilation of wise conclusions, nor is aught set down 
in mahce or envy. If any opinion runs counter to that 
of the reader it is requested that any possible rising of 
temperature be ignored until the perusal is ended. 

To all critically inclined let me remark, do not 
waste time or energy in nursing the mood; if any per- 
sonal enjoyment or refreshment is felt by the emotion, 
hug it to your heart but restrain all outbursts. 

What may seem strange or untrue to-day may be 
orthodox or gospel to-morrow. " The world do move." 
Rembrandt stands the peer of all to-day while a few 
years ago he was a vagrant and unworthy. Miracles, 
plenary inspiration, and the divine paternity were essen- 
tial articles of creed when we were boys ; now many con- 
sider them mere ghosts of decayed orthodoxy. 

The only thing of real interest in these letters is the 
personal note, and the few friends who take time to read 

[^ 



them will at least believe that they are sincere. The 
author's mind may be disordered and his perspective 
distorted, but he has written what he has written with 
complete candor and without wicked intent. 

F. N. Finney. 



Milwaukee, July 14, 1909. 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 



PAGE 



At the Base of the Collossi Thebes Frontispiece 

vMahk Twain and the Author on Board A. T. Co.'s S. S. Min- 
neapolis 3 

■/ Home op Rudtard Kipling, Sussex, England 6 

'Exterior of Bodiam Castle 10 

^ Fountains Abbey 14 

vRosLiN Chapel 16 

" Landscape. By Jan Van der Meer, Gallery La Hague .... 27 

Seeing Nuremberg 30 

s Muhlbrunnen Colonnade, Carlsbad 33 

v Waitresses at the Posthof, Carlsbad 36 

« Chateau Mattoni 37 

N Castle of Neuschwanstein 42 

V Schloss Linderhof 44 

"Theatre at Oberammergau, Bavaria 45 

Christ and the Magdalen. By Gabriel Marx 46 

^Amphitheatre at Brugg-Vindonissa 52 

^ Gorge op the Aar 57 

■ Bridge op St. Marie on the Electric Line Geneva to Chamonix 66 

, C. C. Coleman in Villa Narcissus, Isola di Capri 107 

4 Villa Quatre Ventre, Isola di Capri 110 

The Picnic, Isola di Capri 113 

"< The Maison-Carree, Nimes 214 

\Le Pont-du-Gard near Nimes 216 

Troubetzkoi's Tolstoi, Luxembourg, Paris 217 

Amazone. By Louis Tuaillon 218 

Chateau op Chantilly 241 

[xiii 



Atlantic Transport Line, S. S. Minneapolis 

Thursday, June 13, 1907. 

This is before breakfast. We are about 1458 miles 
from Sandy Hook. The ship did not sail from New 
York until 4 p.m. Saturday in place of 4 a.m. as adver- 
tised, owing to the fact that the strike of the longshore- 
men interfered with her loading, and even with this de- 
lay she left New York over 5000 tons short of what we 
should have taken. 

We expect to land Monday and reach London Tues- 
day morning early. So far the trip has been ideal; no 
rough water to amount to anything, light showers at 
night and a wonderfully steady ship. The meals are 
good and a " fiver " judiciously disposed of brings a 
fresh pot of coffee and sundry other things, so that life 
is bearable even at sea. I have not felt the slightest 
discomfort so far. 

We have several notables aboard, among whom are 
IMark Twain, and Richards, the cartoonist, and Rev. 
Dr. Patton, ex-president of Princeton University, 155 
passengers in all, with no bums, poker players, or others 
of that ilk, and this makes steamboating on the briny 
quite respectable and agreeable. 

Mark Twain is on his way to Oxford to receive a 
degree, and Kipling is also to be there at the same time 
for the same purpose. I have a card from Mrs. Kipling 
teUing me of this and asking me to visit them on the 

[1 



18th and 19th, as they leave for the honorarium on the 
evening of the 19th. Our ship being a day late I shall 
only have the 19th to spend with them. 

These cattle ships have advantages as well as disad- 
vantages. The promenades are not as extensive; on the 
other hand, there are no second-class or steerage passen- 
gers and the much smaller number carried renders the 
noise and racket greatly less than on the big Hners. 
There is plenty of room at the tables and the service is 
vastly superior, and for one who likes the water and has 
no objection to the deadly monotony of the sea, it seems 
as if this would be the method of his journey; but I 
cannot get myself into such touch with this waste of 
water so as to approve of it at all. I look forward, 
however, with interest to the trip from the time we pass 
the Scilly Islands until we reach the mouth of the 
Thames, as we shall be in sight of the coast all the way, 
barring fog, and this will be a new experience, as I 
have never seen anything of the shores above Folkstone 
and Boulogne. I have a chart giving all the important 
points as we go up the Channel. 

The horn toots and I go to my coffee. 

This morning Richards made several caricatures to 
send back to New York, and is now at work on a mas- 
terpiece, showing Mark Twain (an excellent hkeness) 
walking on deck with the little French girl, followed by 
his " fidus Achates," Ashcroft, while all about are 
others, viz. : a deckhand scrubbing while he reads " Life 
on the Minneapolis," a tough customer in a barber's 

2] 



r^iX'Nr^nicriH 




MARK TWAIN AND THE AUTHOR ON BOARD A. T. CO.'S S. S. MINNEAPOLIS 



chair reading " A Tramp Abroad," a miserable seasick 
old woman reading " Innocents Abroad," and two boys, 
one with " Tom Sawyer " and the other with " Huckle- 
berry Finn." It is a very good thing. 

This is our seventh day out and so far we have not 
had an unpleasant day, barring light showers and only 
some three hours of light fog. No more delightful 
weather could be asked for, but there is not enough 
variety to make it interesting. 

Sunday Morning. 

We had a concert last evening and developed an 
amazing amount of talent from our 155 passengers, two 
fair pianists, a young girl violinist who certainly wdll 
be famous, a bass and tenor who would do anywhere, 
two sopranos good enough for the opera, who, with 
Mark Twain and Dr. Patton as orators, made a very 
interesting evening lasting until nearly midnight. 

This is another splendid morning, sunny and cooler. 
Nothing like it in all my experience. To-morrow morn- 
ing we sight land and enter the English Channel. It 
is some twenty-four hours now from the Scilly Islands 
to Tilbury where we land. I shall mail this at once on 
reaching London Tuesday. 

Monday Afternoon. 

We have had another perfectly lovely day and I wiU 
wind this up so as to mail it early to-morrow morning. 
Our route up the Channel to-day has been so direct, 
after passing the Needles, that we have had only a dis- 

[3 



tant view of the Isle of Wight and shall not enter the 
Straits of Dover until after dark. If we could have left 
New York twelve hours earlier we would have seen 
much more. Of course, we have been continually in 
sight of ships ever since daylight. We saw two battle- 
ships steaming out of Portsmouth, but they were too far 
away to see anything of their detail. We should reach 
Tilbury to-morrow at four a.m. and have breakfast 
at seven, leaving for London on a special train at eight- 
thirty. It is a forty-five mile run to London. This has 
been an ideal trip such as I had not deemed possible on 
the Atlantic. 



4] 



II 



Hotel Morley 

London, June 22. 

This is Saturday evening and I have just returned 
from dining at the famous " Cecil." The dining room 
was crowded with Americans in full dress and our 
women quite outshone the English fair sex. They are 
well in front of the EngUsh in figure, dress, and car- 
riage, and I was proud of them. 

The week's resume runs as follows : landed Tuesday 
morning about eight thirty, and after a glance at our 
belongings by the custom officers we boarded our train 
of first-class coaches, and after an hour's run up the 
valley of the Thames landed at St. Pancras Station 
and came to this old hostelry kept by the family of the 
James for over fifty years. It is very quaint as the 
result of frequent additions, making one run up and 
down stairs and through long narrow halls, and be- 
wilderingly cut up. The people that I used to know 
are dead and gone and the two sons now operate the 
house, not so well, however, as the two old-maid sisters 
and the brother used to do. After washing up and un- 
packing my clothes I spent the afternoon at the 
National Gallery. The pictures are much the same as 
of old, with the addition of a splendid portrait of Glad- 
stone by Millais, a picture one will never forget. 

To wind up the day I took a ride on the omnibus 
up Piccadilly to Hyde Park and back; this is always 

[5 



interesting owing to the crowded condition of the streets. 

Wednesday I went out to Burwash, some fifty miles, 
and spent the day with the Kiphngs. They Hve about 
five miles from the railway station. Their auto met me 
there and the chauffeur and I had quite a pleasant visit 
together as we ran over the lovely, high rolling country. 
This is the place Kipling bought, together with some 
one hundred acres of land. The house is a large, splen- 
did country seat, dating back to 1634, with two saw- 
mills dating back to the twelfth century. Kipling has 
put in water works and steam-heating and also an elec- 
tric light plant. The grounds have extensive lawns, a 
swimming pool, and are picturesquely situated with high 
hills on all sides. I am enclosing a picture of the house 
that Mr. Kipling gave me. You cannot get much of 
an idea of the beauty of their home from this, as it is 
so large and quaint. 

The house was the home of the landlord of the estate, 
who was a large mine owner. The valley was a great 
iron country in the olden times when the forests fur- 
nished charcoal for the furnaces, but these have long 
since been cut down and the furnaces destroyed. After 
lunch Kipling took me in his auto on a five-mile trip to 
see the Bodiam Castle, one of the great English strong- 
holds, and the best preserved in England that is un- 
occupied. It is surrounded by a moat with twenty-two 
feet of water and it has three portcullises, two more 
than are generally found. It is a most interesting place 
and is kept in beautiful order by the present owner. 

6] 



The great towers and walls are almost as perfect as ever. 
We spent nearly two hours here and then he ran me to 
a nearby station where I took train for return to London. 

Thursday I went to the bank and found a lot of 
letters and then went to the " Wallace Collection," which 
is really the best worth seeing in the line of pictures of 
anything here. The collection cost Mr. Wallace four 
million pounds and the Government spent a very large 
sum for its maintenance and housing. I am going there 
again, as it is worth many visits. 

That evening I went to hear Sir Charles Wyndham 
and Mary Moore in " The Liars." It was splendidly 
acted and the audience was handsomely dressed. Eng- 
lish women go to the theatre in full dress, and are overly 
plump, from our American standpoint. 

Friday took a seat on one of Cook's touring cars and 
visited old London, including the Tower, St. Paul's, the 
Guild Hall, National Museum, Hyde Park, Green 
Park, etc., etc., and wound up at Dickens's " Old Curi- 
osity Shop," so they said, although one cannot imagine 
Little Nell and Grandpa both getting into the mite of a 
place at the same time. By the way, I do not recollect 
that Dickens claimed they did. I could barely turn 
around in it. 

To-day I have been to the Houses of Parliament 
and Westminster Abbey. The ceiling of the Henry 
VII Chapel and the tablets of the Poets, with Long- 
fellow's bust, and the general architectural eifects in- 
terested me the most. 

[7 



This afternoon I spent in the Exhibition of Modem 
Painters at Burlington House. It is a great collection 
but deadly tiresome as a whole, with few exceptions, 
especially in the water colors. 

I am going to bed early to-night and feel that I am 
about two inches shorter, owing to walking about and 
standing around looking at things. If this continues 
I shall buy an old-fashioned rack and stretch myself out 
at night so as not to present a dwarfed appearance on 
my return home. 

Barring the shortness heretofore alluded to I find 
myself in prime condition and full of interest in all I am 
seeing. I think that by Wednesday next I shall leave 
here and go up through the Cathedral Towns, first to 
Cambridge, then Ely, Peterborough, Lincoln, York, 
Ripon, Fountains Abbey, Abbots ford, Roslin, and Dry- 
burgh, and may possibly go to Edinburgh and Stirling. 
Autos cost so much ($40.00 a day) and the hedges are 
so high that one cannot see anything but the back of 
the chauffeur, so that I have decided to go by rail. 
What is the use of putting on airs behind one's driver? 
and then I am going to save up to ride in style in France. 
I'll manage to get in an auto ride somehow to brag 
about when I get home. 

Sunday, June 23, 4:30 P.M. 

I have just returned from Hampton Wick; found 
the Newmans, father, mother, Edith and her husband, 
and her two lovely little girls. She has married a fijie 
fellow, an American, a graduate of Yale, who is the 

8] 



Westinghouse engineer representing that company in 
London. I was very much taken with him. The oldest 
little girl is a miniature copy of her mother and is a 
charming little two-year-old. Jean is in the United 
States with her husband but returns early in July. She 
has a home quite near Edith's. Her husband is also a 
Yale man and a chum of Mr. Baldwin's, and is in a 
lucrative position here as an engineer. Hampton Wick 
is a suburb of London and pleasantly situated on the 
right bank of the Thames, just above Putney. I 
lunched with them and had a very pleasant day. 

Norton and John will be interested to know that all 
of the old men at Morley's are here yet and knew me 
at once when I came, and have been very attentive to all 
of my wants. 



[9 



Ill 



Unicorn Hotel 
BiPON, England, June 30. 

Leaving London Thursday morning I came to 
Cambridge, took a carriage and visited all the Univer- 
sity Colleges, saw the beautiful ivory copy of the Taj 
Mahal, which is a perfect reproduction of this famous 
tomb, on a scale of one-fourth of an inch to the foot. 
Trinity is the most extensive building and has splendid 
grounds, but King's Chapel is the crowning glory, with 
its splendid fan-vaulted ceiling and sixteenth-century 
windows. The Pepys Library was unfortunately closed, 
but I had seen it once before and therefore was not 
greatly disappointed. Later in the afternoon I went 
over to Ely and had time to look over the cathedral be- 
fore dark ; and, by the way, it is daylight here up to nine 
o'clock at night and again at five a.m. The " Lamb '* 
is still excellent as of yore. 

Friday morning I had another look at the cathedral 
and then went over to Peterborough and had some three 
hours there, then over to Lincoln for the night. What 
was one of the most charming of inns. The White Hart, 
has changed hands and is miserably kept, with the vilest 
coffee and service. I was glad to get away from there, 
although the minster is so interesting, also the old castle 
and fortifications. A great fair was going on and the 
streets were fairly reeking with decorations. On Wed- 
nesday the King had been there, and a railroad employee 

lOJ 



told me that they had hauled 75,000 passengers into the 
place that day, and 25,000 was the smallest number 
carried on any day during the week. The town was 
jammed full of loyal subjects. Norton will appreciate 
what that means. 

I was led into some reveries on the Britishers upon 
returning, to the effect that individually and at his best 
the Englishman is a fine fellow, honorable, right-minded, 
and chivalrous, but as a class they are brutal, coarse, 
egotistical braggarts and cowards. They to a man op- 
press the man under them and kotow to and abase them- 
selves to the one above. They will do anything to make 
a shilling; they do all kinds of wickednesses and keep 
the Sabbath with a blare of trumpets and pharisaical 
bumptiousness and call upon all mankind to witness that 
they are the " great God-fearing people of the world," 
and that is just what they are. They are afraid of God 
and so they make great " miration " of their righteous- 
ness, but they are cowards, always excepting when they 
have overwhelming forces. The Pilgrims with their 
scant numbers and empty money chests whipped them 
in the Revolution; the Indians whipped them at Delhi; 
the Boers whipped them in Africa; and they were 
whipped at Waterloo when Bliicher wrested victory out 
of defeat for them. They talk through their noses and 
revile us for our "nasalities" ; they drop their "hatches" ; 
they call daily " dily " and papers " pipers." They talk 
worse English than Chaucer and have never yet ad- 
mitted that America has enriched and kept pure the 

[11 



dialect that shall yet be the universal language. The 
average Yankee is pretty bad, but he is an angel with 
a golden harp and silver tones compared to the bloke 
who acts as verger in Peterborough Cathedral. He 
couldn't understand himself after his gutterals had 
cooled off. 

Leaving Lincoln yesterday I went over to York ex- 
pecting to spend the night, but a cool rain set in and 
after spending three hours there I came over here for 
Sunday. This little inn is a good specimen of the best 
of its class and is called The Unicorn. There is a fine 
cathedral here and this morning they had a special ser- 
vice for the Volunteer Soldiers of the country, who at- 
tended in uniform and had a fine band that played the 
airs for the hymns and after the service rendered one of 
Wagner's overtures under the great central dome. This 
afternoon they are giving an open-air concert in the 
park. 

Norton and John will remember that when we were 
at Peterborough we could not see much of the minster 
as it was undergoing extensive repairs, and they will be 
interested to know that this work has all been done and 
the restoration has made a very complete and beautiful 
building. 

The great amount of rain, although virtually spoil- 
ing the motor touring, has made the country very beauti- 
ful. From London to Peterborough the land is flat, but 
after that it is lofty and rolling and the landscape is 
peculiarly beautiful. The green hedges, the graceful 

12J 



oaks and willows, with the red-tiled-roofs of farm-houses 
with the villages give views that are hard to improve on 
in any country, and it is an ever lovely panorama that 
passes before you as you journey. 

There is one virtue (not the only one by any means) 
that the Enghsh have, and that is love for their ancient 
buildings, and now that these are bringing them wealth 
from the Yankee pocket, they are paying more attention 
than ever to their restoration and preservation. Had 
*' Thomas " and " Oliver " been permitted to live a few 
years longer, England would have been terribly short 
on cathedrals and abbeys. The preservation of fossils 
I observe is another strong point with the English. A 
tablet in Ripon Cathedral states that it was placed there 
to honor the memory of (I forgot the name) who played 
the organ in that house for forty-two years and who 
died at the age of eighty-one. For one moment consider 
the music of this aged person ! The waiters at Morley's 
have been there over thirty years; the deans and arch- 
bishops hold over until death; and a man to win distinc- 
tion must do it through good digestion and a muscular 
liver or not at all. Brains don't count against brawn. 

Melrose, Scotland 

Monday, July 1, 9:30 p.m. 

This morning I drove over to Fountains Abbey and 
spent all the morning in this loveliest spot in England. 
It is even more beautiful than I remembered it. Any- 
one who visits England and fails to see it has missed 

[13 



more than words can begin to describe^ and yet I met 
several parties on my journey here that have always 
lived within a hundred miles of it, who confessed that 
they had never seen it. It is a most majestic and glori- 
ous ruin. 

This afternoon I came over here, arriving at eight, 
and after dinner have been walking about in Melrose 
Abbey. It is small but most lovely, and I had an old 
Scotchman along who repeated the " Lay of the Last 
Minstrel " to me in a good Scotch accent, describing 
almost everything that is worth noticing as we came 
upon it. It was a rare treat, as he was in love with it 
and declaimed the lines in fine style. 

To-morrow morning I shall visit Dryburgh Abbey 
and Abbotsford and then go to Edinburgh for the night. 



14] 



IV 



Edinburgh, July 4. 

The guide book will tell you all about this city and 
it has been written of so generally that to spend time in 
description of it would be sure evidence of approaching 
senility. But there are one or two things at least that I 
have not read or heard of from other travellers ; these I 
may recount. Just up Princess Street, a short distance 
beyond the North British Railway Station, one comes 
to the old Calton Cemetery where lie the remains of the 
Scotch soldiers that fell in the civil wars ; in this, near the 
gate, stands a splendid statue of Abraham Lincoln 
erected by the American consul (his name I did not 
learn). It was touching to see fresh flowers placed by 
some loving hand at the foot of this statue to commemo- 
rate the day. 

In driving about the city yesterday the guide pointed 
out to us the houses where Scott, Burns, and John Knox 
lived, but no mention was made of any moimment, me- 
morial, or tribute to one of Scotland's greatest men, 
Thomas Carlyle. In the world of letters he has made 
an indelible mark; his "History of Frederick the 
Great " and " The French Revolution " are the most 
unique and graphic writings of his or any other century. 
The Scotch people show an indifference to his merits 
that is to their shame. A tardy recognition of literary 
ability is oftentimes very excusable, but to neglect such 
a world-wide recognized genius as that of Carlyle does 
not speak well for the canny Scot. 

[IS 



To-day we decided to celebrate the glorious Fourth 
by visiting Hawthornden and Roslin and so took a local 
train at 9: 30 a.m., in a pouring rain, hoping that as it 
had rained all the time nearly since we reached England, 
we might expect clearing weather even on the Fourth of 
July. Arriving at Hawthornden you leave the station 
and cross the track on the bridge and, turning to the 
left, follow the main road, which leads you to the lodge 
gate on the left where you enter the grounds of Lord 
Drummond, a lineal descendant of the poet Drummond, 
the friend of Shakespeare and Ben Jonson. The 
grounds are very extensive and perfectly cared for. 
We were taken in hand by an affable female who ex- 
tracted a reluctant shilling from each of our party and 
then took us through subterranean passages containing 
rooms for the ashes of the departed. In one of these the 
heroic Bruce found a hiding place, but the lovely 
grounds, the noble trees, and the shrubbery were of the 
greatest interest. From here we walked down the nar- 
row gorge of the Esk some three-quarters of an hour 
to Roslin. Shortly after leaving Hawthornden it began 
to rain and continued until we returned to Edinburgh. 
. . . If it had not been the Fourth I think we would 
have backed out, but the Yankee blood would never 
permit that on English soil and on the Fourth of July. 
The sight of the beautiful chapel repaid us for dampness 
and mud and cold. It is a jewel in stone, a tribute of 
the conscience to make even with heaven the evil of a 
worldly life; a work begun in hopes of mediation but 

16] 




ROSLIN CHAPEL 



scarce half completed when he found it was too late and 
his accounting called before the debts were settled. He 
did compass at least the beginning and started the mat- 
ter so that it went to a certain completion and it remains 
for all time a thing of exquisite beauty. The day, even 
with its drawbacks, was full of charm and delight, as our 
shoes were of mud and water. 



[17 



Glasgow, July 6. 

As I had never visited the much talked of " Tros- 
sachs " I concluded that as I was in Edinburgh I might 
as well " do " them, and thus be on a parity with those 
who were forever telling me that I had missed " the 
whole game " when I confessed that I had never done 
Scotland farther north than Edinburgh and Glasgow. 

Leaving Edinburgh at 9 a.m. via the North British 
Railway, the first thing was, of course, the crossing of the 
great bridge over the Firth of Forth, the so-called eighth 
wonder of the world — it is easily the first. The two 
great spans of 1710 feet each, with the central towers 
of steel, made of cylinders 12 feet in diameter and 360 
feet in height, carrying the projecting arms of the canti- 
levers, which reach out from the rocky island 675 feet 
on each side to the central spans, are of such magnitude 
that one is not able to grasp the thing except as he con- 
templates the figures of its details. 

Soon after crossing the bridge Stirling Castle comes 
in sight. I did not stop off but could see it plainly from 
the train. There were no towers, castellated walls, or 
high-flung battlements. Then we came to a little town 
of Aberf oyle where we had a most miserable lunch, then 
on a big four-in-hand coach, rigged like a " Seeing New 
York " aiFair, we drove for five miles over a range of 
hills, accomplishing 800 feet of altitude, to " Trossachs 
Pier " on Loch Katrine; then small steamer on the loch 

18] 



to Stronachlacher, six miles; then wagon again to In- 
versnaid, five miles; then steamer on Loch Lomond; 
twenty miles to Balloch; then train, for forty minutes, 
to Glasgow, arriving here at 7 : 25 p.m. 

It began to rain when we left Stronachlacher and 
continued to do so all the way to this city. The wagon 
had no cover so I pulled the rubber blanket over my 
knees and held my umbrella close down over my face 
and did not see a thing on that six-mile drive, except now 
and then a sheep out of the corner of my right eye. The 
ride is over hills with a good macadam road and easy 
mountain gradients. The lochs are long and narrow 
with low hills on either bank. I had always supposed 
that the mountains were lofty and snow-capped, arid 
the scenery grand and awe inspiring — it is quite other- 
wise. On a fine summer day I think it would be a very 
pleasant diversion, similar to a drive about the Ocono- 
mowoc country, with the hills a little higher, but the 
lakes in no way superior. But I suppose that hereafter 
I will have to lie and brag about it all as tourists do. 

There were some funny people aboard, as there 
always are : one woman who talked incessantly and said 
she had been over here for four years and was " really 
quite blase, don't you know." Then there was a big 
man from Texas, who was telling some quiet and well 
meaning little Scotchman that " Texas was bigger than 
all of the United Kingdom and a whole lot of Europe 
thrown in," and he wasn't going to decide which hotel 
he would stop at in Glasgow until he had tried their 

[19 



dinner. Later on he drifted into our hotel while we 
were dining and I heard him order fried eggs for his 
dinner. What can you do with such people? 

As you come into Glasgow by rail from the lake 
country, you have frequent stops at outlying stations 
in the city, which are highly perplexing, as one does not 
know the time nor the place at which to get out. There 
were inconceivable numbers of these, and our crowd 
jiunping up, pulling the windows down and craning 
their necks over the platform, and shouting out to the 
innocent bystanders, "Is this the place where we get 
out? " reminded me of a car full of chickens stretching 
their necks out of the crates as they roll through the 
country. It was amusing from one point of view, viz., 
mine own, as I drew my neck in for the last time and 
still found my head on it. To cut the matter short, you 
must sit stiU until you reach Queen Street and then gain 
honor and repute from your fellow travellers by getting 
out and going about your business. 

It is pouring again to-day and I have no inclination 
to go out, as there is not much to see here except ship- 
building and the university, so I have stayed in writing 
up my diary and this letter. 

The whole of England and Scotland are complain- 
ing of the extraordinary dampness of the season, which 
is ruining the tourist business, on which they so much 
depend each year. In " God-fearing Scotland " there 
are no Sunday trains except at night (I suppose they 
think God won't know about night trains) : therefore as 

20] 



I want to see the country I have to wait over here until 
Monday morning and take a train to London and reach 
the Continent as quickly as I can, hoping to find some 
weather that is not entirely composed of water. My 
letters from here will not be interesting excepting to sea- 
faring men, until I find dry ground. I quite understand 
the feeling of the dove after her first trip from the ark. 
Andrew will be solely in touch with these conditions. 

Glasgow, July 7. 

Yesterday afternoon the clouds broke and the sun 
came out and so we concluded to take a trip down the 
Clyde to Greenock to see the new Cunarder Lusitania, 
which had just returned from her trial trip down to the 
sea. We couldn't get aboard of her owing to the fact 
that on her trip it was discovered that her huge turbine 
engines caused such tremendous vibrations that it was 
damaging to the ship as well as making it very uncom- 
fortable for the passengers, and large numbers of work- 
men were on board putting in additional braces to coun- 
teract this motion. We steamed around her, however, 
twice, and took note of her great dimensions. She is 
856 feet in length and 58 feet across her beam. The 
thought occurred to me that the man who designed her 
was not at present on a bed of roses, as these Scotchmen 
are not given to overlooking mistakes of this nature. 

To-day being clear and bright,! have been out seeing 
as much of the city as possible. It being Sunday, there 
are no carriages or cabs on the streets, the electric, all 

[31 



double deck, being the only mode of conveyance per- 
mitted on this day. The streets are very quiet, although 
thronged with pedestrians. No stores or saloons are 
open. 

The railways all enter the city on either elevated or 
submerged tracks; there are no crossings at grade. 
There are no vacant lots and no buildings with grounds. 
The streets are kept very clean and built up very solidly 
with brick or stone, all of a respectable type, with no 
shanties or tumbledown disreputable tenements, so uni- 
versally found in most of the large cities. 

Glasgow can boast of a very attractive park lying 
along the shores of the Severn, where very many in- 
teresting trees, shrubs, and plants are growing, each one 
bearing labels giving both the botanical and the common 
name. There were many people walking about, amongst 
whom were two little boys some six and eight years of 
age respectively, dressed in true Highland costume — 
Scotch caps, the clan plaids, with little bare legs, and 
carrying small canes — walking with their tutor and look- 
ing so serious and proper. Still farther out you come 
to the new art gallery, a large and imposing building 
not yet quite completed, but into which the old gallery 
was being moved. The collection contains two splendid 
Israels, a fine Tadema, a noticeable portrait of Herko- 
mer, two Hobbemas, two Murillos, and a very excellent 
Burne-Jones. The collection is well worth coming here 
to see. The municipal buildings are all worthy of a 
large and rich city and show a generous administration 

22] 



as well as a wise one. In all my wanderings through the 
city I did not see a single place where the streets were 
being torn up or under repair. It gives one the idea 
of being in a finished town, something I have not seen 
elsewhere. There are a great many fine monuments 
erected to the memory of notable Scotchmen scattered 
throughout the city, but, alas, nothing of Carlyle 
did I see. 



[23 



VI 



Antwerp, Sunday Evening, July 14. 

I WILL give you a brief resume of the week, but I 
am sorry it has been rather uneventful. A week ago 
to-day, you will remember, I was in Glasgow, after the 
miserable rainy week between London and that place. 
Monday morning I left Glasgow and went by train 
through rain and mist to Leamington where I found 
again the old, nice hotel, the Manor House. Norton and 
John will remember it as the place where we all got out 
of the train and packed ourselves and impedimenta into 
a hack ; then the man turned his wagon around and there 
we were, for which he charged us shillings three. I 
remembered this and stepped into the house without the 
aid of a hackman. What I began to say is that the 
Manor House is still kept by the same people and in 
the same excellent manner. The old lady tried to make 
me believe that she remembered me, but you know that 
was a little too much. 

Well, Sunday morning was a repetition of all the 
other days, but as it did not actually rain I got a voiture 
and drove over through Warwick to Stratford-on-Avon. 
The Shakespeare house has been fixed up, matting laid 
on the floors, mementoes arranged and made more acces- 
sible, and restored where necessary. Several busts, por- 
traits, letters, furniture, etc., added to the collection with 
many valuable collections of famous editions of the 
great dramatist's works, so that it is much better and 

24,] 



more satisfactory than it was when we all were there. 
From there I went to the home of Anne Hathaway ; this 
we did not see before owing to the stupidity of our 
driver. I was bound to see it this time. It is a most 
interesting house and the little old wooden settle or bench 
on which the lad Shakespeare courted the fair Anne, who 
most certainly " had a way," is there yet, and I sat on 
it hoping to draw inspiration from its proximity, but 
I couldn't stop the rain. 

I went again to the church as I did not have it very 
clearly in my mind, and was glad to note that it is a fine 
Gothic edifice, with some good stained glass and inter- 
esting tablets and tombs. The old verger said in answer 
to my question as to whether Shakespeare was really 
buried there, that owing to the epitaph that Shakespeare 
wrote himself, which you will all recall, they had never 
dared to open the tomb to see whether his bones were 
there or not. From here I drove over to Warwick and 
spent two hours there. There are some very fine por- 
traits on the walls, one particularly fine of a past earl 
painted by Van Dyck. I couldn't get enough of it. 
Also a fine full-length portrait of the Countess of War- 
wick by Carolus Duran, which has been added to the 
former collection. The years that have passed since we 
were here before have brought changes and improve- 
ments, electric light, steam heat, etc. It began to rain 
while I was here and I drove in a closed carriage over 
to Leamington in time to catch the evening train to 
London. 

[S5 



Wednesday it rained all day and I put in my time 
going over to the bank for my mail, exchanging money, 
and a last look through the National Portrait Gallery. 
There are some mighty good ones amongst the lot, es- 
pecially one of Thomas Carlyle, one of Richard Burton, 
but nothing equal to Millais's Gladstone that I men- 
tioned in my previous letter. 

Wednesday night I took train to Queensborough, 
steamer to Flushing, and rail to Antwerp. The steamer 
was packed, and although I engaged my passage in 
London early Wednesday morning I found that I was 
in the same cabin with three Englishmen. My berth 
was so narrow that even with my lankness and general 
slimness I could hardly squeeze in between the sides. 
We had a very rough night, and everybody sick but 
me, so far as I know. There wasn't much sleep for me, 
as one of my cabin mates was up and down all night. 

Landed early Thursday morning and reached Ant- 
werp after a lingering trip, changing cars twice, at 9 
A.M. The day was pleasant and cool and I put in Thurs- 
day and Friday in the galleries and cathedrals. The 
" Descent from the Cross " by Rubens is greater than 
ever ; I went three times to see it. 

On my last visit Friday afternoon, as I was buying 
my ticket for admission to the cathedral, someone near 
me said, " Isn't this Mr. Finney? " and I looked down 
on Will Cochran's wife and her daughter who was by 
her side. I was very glad to see them and hoped to have 
a visit with them, but on inquiring they said they had 



just arrived and after seeing this cathedral would leave 
for Brussels with no further stay in Antwerp. I cannot 
understand how anyone takes either pleasure or comfort 
in rushing through a country like this. Think of seeing 
Antwerp in three hours ! 

Saturday I drove about in the park and saw the resi- 
dences of the best famihes. In Antwerp I stopped at 
the Grand Hotel, a fine building but most villainously 
kept, really the meanest table and worst service of any 
house I remember. I was glad to leave and left my 
curses upon it. 

The Hague, Monday, July 16. 

Left Antwerp Saturday afternoon and arrived here 
after a three hours' run. To-day I have spent in the 
Mauritz Gallery. There are some fine Rubens, Paul 
Potter's " Young Bull," and the famous landscape by 
Van der Meer. This is said to be the best thing of its 
kind in the world, and it is certainly worth coming here 
to see. I have a photograph of this, for I want to look at 
it and bring it back to mind when I get home. Of 
course, the color and atmosphere are lost in the photo- 
graph, but I can supply them in imagination. 

I also visited the private collection of Baron Stein- 
graph, where there are some lovely pictures. Last even- 
ing I went on the tram out to Scheveningen. How it 
has changed since we were here ! The road through the 
woods is perfectly lovely and costly residences are fre- 
quent. Large hotels and a great Kursaal have been 
built on the seashore, and a grand concert by the Berlin 

[27 



Orchestra was given. A great crowd was there and the 
fine hall was completely filled. There was an intermis- 
sion between every two or three pieces when everybody 
turned out and promenaded on the extensive platform 
built out from the shore. I tried to get into the Vieux 
Doelen, the old hunting lodge, where we stayed when we 
were here before, but the Peace Commissioners have 
taken possession of the fine old house and there is no 
room for anybody else. However, I am in a pretty good 
house just diagonally across the street. 

I shall spend to-morrow visiting the Queen's two 
palaces, the City Hall, etc., and go to Amsterdam Tues- 
day and spend one day there, and then to Cologne and 
up the Rhine. This city is packed with visitors from 
all lands; this Peace business seems to have drawn visi- 
tors to a wonderful extent. I shall try and get in to- 
morrow and listen to their high-mightinesses, if possible. 

The weather has turned into summer and the last 
three days have been lovely and inspiring. I shall hope 
to reach Carlsbad by next Sunday, if I do not hear of 
something interesting to distract me. I hope you are 
all well and prospering and I can assure you that every 
day I think how fine it would be if you could enjoy this 
trip with me. 



28] 



VII 



Cablsbad, July 23. 

To resume where I left ofF the 14th; I left The 
Hague at 2:30 p.m. the 16th, Monday, after another 
pleasant visit to Scheveningen, and reached Amsterdam 
in three hours. Tuesday I went to the Ryksmuseum 
to see the Rembrandts, in which this gallery is rich. 
There are also two splendid pictures by Israels, which 
to me are vastly interesting. Israels is now about sev- 
enty-four years old and I think has abandoned painting; 
his pictures are very high priced and when he dies will 
undoubtedly largely increase in value. 

Wednesday I left Amsterdam at 8 : 40 a.m. and 
went to Cologne, reaching there at 2 : 30 p.m., and went 
at once to the cathedral and spent the remainder of the 
afternoon there. It is here that the bones of the three 
wise men are kept in a magnificent casket made of gold 
and silver and set with many precious and semi-precious 
stones. It weighs sixty-seven pounds and cost half a 
million dollars. Later I took a voiture and drove all 
about for two hours and visited two other old churches 
and the old fortifications, and spent the night at the 
excellent Hotel du Nord. 

Thursday at 8 : 40 a.m took steamer up the Rhine. 
The ship was well loaded and nearly all were Germans, 
but it was castles I was after and so lack of congenial 
company did not count. 

I found many of the old castles restored, which 

[39 



means decayed walls patched up, steam heat and electric 
light put in, and made liveable. These have generally 
been purchased by wealthy men and fashioned over 
into splendid country seats. We reached Mayence at 
9 P.M. The next morning, as there was no train until 
1 : 30 P.M., I took the tram car and went in thirty 
minutes over to Wiesbaden, a splendidly built town of 
innumerable hotels and boarding houses, and with a 
brand new Kurhaus of the most gorgeous description, 
built by the city at a cost of fifteen hundred thousand 
dollars. I have never seen any building more suitable, 
attractive, and magnificent in every part than this. It 
is built, of course, to draw visitors, and the town seemed 
well filled. The people, however, were not as attractive 
as they are here, for that is a rheumatic cure and this 
is for excessive embonpoint. There they were mostly 
decrepit and tied in knots, while here there is an air of 
general good feeling and extravagant dressing. Ladies 
here dress elaborately before breakfast and the morning 
toilettes are simply stunning. 

I returned to Mayence in time for lunch and left 
at 1:80 for Nuremberg, arriving at 7:30 p.m., and 
stopped at the new hotel, Wiirttemberger, Hof. Sat- 
urday morning I took a seat on the " Seeing Nurem- 
berg " coach and until noon was busy going through old 
churches, the Tower, and seeing the houses of the notable 
men, such as Adam Krafft, the stonemason; Hans 
Sachs, the shoemaker, and chief figure in the Meister- 
singer; Peter Vischer, the blacksmith; and Albrect 
Diirer, the artist. 

30] 








Z 


" -' i 


o 




z 

c: 


k 


pi 


& 






O 


m 



I 



After lunch I took a cab and went to the Ginger 
Bread Shop and ordered a box of gingerbread sent to 
N— — , as that was one of his favorite haunts when 
here; then to the Bratwurstglocklein and (I am afraid 
you won't believe it) ate a plate of sausage and sauer 
kraut and drank a mug of foaming beer, and, what was 
more strange, never heard a word of complaint from my 
astonished stomach. It was all right for Nuremberg. 
I intended remaining over Sunday there but when Sun- 
day morning came I changed my mind and took the 
8 J 40 train and came here, arriving at 12: 20 p.m. 

My weekly letter that should have been written on 
Sunday was postponed owing to my journeying over 
here from Nuremberg that day, and yesterday was oc- 
cupied by getting settled and interviewing Dr. Gruen- 
berger for advice as to the drinking business. He is the 
same old doctor I had when your mother arid I were 
here in 1893 ; he knew me at once and insisted on calling 
me " Papa Finney " throughout the entire interview. 

He put me through a bodily examination, pound- 
ing my ribs, listening to my heart, punching my liver, 
and squeezing my stomach, and pronounced me abso- 
lutely sound: said I was in splendid condition, only 
having a rather indolent digestion which he could remedy 
if I would stay three weeks; prescribing my diet and 
the spring from which I should drink, and now I am 
fairly entered upon my career. I get up at six forty- 
five, walk to the spring, a distance of three-quarters of 
a mile, drift in at the tail end of the procession, which 

[31 



bj^ the time I reach there is from four to five hundred 
feet in length, and after marching for some twelve 
minutes come to the spring, hand the girl my cup and 
keep on going, and by the time I reach the farther end 
of the stairs, my cup comes up filled and I take it in 
hand and pass out of the crowd and drink this warm 
solution of alkali, soda, and ancient eggs, and in fifteen 
minutes resume my march and drink my second glass. 

The to^vn is jammed with visitors; sixteen thousand 
registered Sunday and there were eight hundred new 
arrivals yesterday. I don't know where they all find 
lodgment as I spent a full four hours Sunday driving 
about to find a room and was only successful finally 
in getting accommodations at " Pupp's " great estab- 
lishment. This is where they permit one to ride up in the 
lift but you must walk down, no matter how high up 
your room is, and it is a matter of grave conjecture how 
some of these people with superabundance of fat man- 
age to accomplish this feat, for how they can tell what 
their poor legs are doing away below and so absolutely 
out of sight is beyond me. 

The weather has been very bad here so far but now 
has turned out fine and is growing warmer daily. I 
suppose this rush will continue until September. I have 
not seen a familiar face yet. 



32] 



VIII 

Carlsbad, August 1. 

I WROTE you last Tuesday, since which time nothing 
eventful has happened. The days fly hy with nothing 
doing except the regular routine, viz. : getting up at six 
A.M., dressing and walking about half a mile to the 
Marktbrunnen, falhng in Hne, getting your cup filled 
when you reach the spring, then stepping out of the 
procession and slowly imbibing your glass of lukewarm 
stuff, which is supposed to use up two or three minutes. 
Then you idle about and pick out picturesque figures 
for amusement and say to yourself " poor devils " for 
the balance of fifteen minutes, when you take up the role 
of P.D. yourself and march around and take another 
whack at the warm water and then go up the street to 
the Bernhardtbrunnen which is very hot and which you 
can only sip, and then you come out of the throng in the 
Colonnade into the crowded street and push along be- 
tween Jews and Gentiles, Believers and Unbelievers', 
Pharisees and Publicans, Germans, Greeks, Italians, 
Americans, Poles, Russians, French, rich and poor, men 
and women, in almost equal numbers, but generally all 
fat, with here and there a lean one hke myself — but they 
are rare, as the great feature of this spring is the power 
to reduce embonpoint, and surely in this whole world 
you will never find any twenty thousand such wonder- 
fully developed people, especially women, as here in 
Carlsbad. 

[33 



Then the dressing; the toilettes are most stunning 
even at this early hour, hundreds of these fine creatures 
are dressed extravagantly, richly, and mostly in excel- 
lent taste. I have never seen anything to equal it, but 
you must remember that this is the feature of the day, 
everyone is on the streets and if one has good clothes 
this is the time and place to show them; for one rests 
during the remainder of the day; another grand display 
of toilettes and jewels from seven to eight when every- 
body dines; and at nine the band stops playing, the 
crowds seek their quarters, and no sound is heard until 
six the next morning, when the call bells sound and 
hurrying feet and slamming doors proclaim that the 
hour for devotions at the Water Shrine has come. 

It is amusing to walk from the spring out to the 
breakfast places, three in number, up the creek, from 
three-quarters to one and one-half miles from the drink 
halls. There are two bread shops soon after leaving the 
spring where every kind of " floury " thing is sold, and 
everyone stops at one of these and selects what he pre- 
fers, or more likely what the doctor has prescribed, takes 
it in hand in a purple paper bag and goes merrily along, 
swinging it ostentatiously, to the breakfast grounds. 
Observe that no bread of any kind is sold elsewhere and 
so you must get it at these shops. 

I go out to the Posthof ; the coffee is exceptionally 
good there and the girls who wait on you are attentive 
and respectful. There are two other places, one especi- 
ally patronized by the automobile crowds, but neither 

34] 



I 



the coffee nor the attendance is anywhere equal to the 
place I go to, and besides the grounds at the Posthof 
are much pleasanter. After eating my roll and soft 
boiled eggs and drinking a little pot of excellent coiFee, 
I stroll back to the hotel, or, if feeling vigorous, take 
the mountain walk over the high hills on easy zigzags, 
and reach the hotel in an hour and a half. The walk is 
lovely, shaded all the way, as it is through a forest. 
There are any number of these; I have taken three of 
them, and as I am feeling right as a cricket, I intend 
to explore as many of them as I can ; then I read or visit 
or look into the shops or rest for the balance of the day. 
I now have to take a glass of water at six p.m. under 
the orders of the doctor. I dine at one thirty and take a 
light supper at seven and am in bed at nine. I generally 
get a nap in the morning for about twenty or thirty 
minutes. It is amusing, interesting, and instructive to 
sit on the benches that line the Alte Wiese and watch the 
endless moving multitude that fills this narrow thor- 
oughfare that is about twenty feet wide and follows 
along by the side of the little river. No teams are 
allowed on it from twelve noon until six in the evening, 
during which time it is given to the promenaders. It 
is kept as clean as a house floor. Here you can sit with- 
out being told to move on, but you cannot stand in the 
street and interrupt traffic without a policeman soon 
appearing and ordering you to pass along. It is a wise 
provision, for there would be a jam in a very few 
minutes if it were permitted. 

[35 



I had thought to go to Dresden from here but the 
doctor says it would not be well to do so and advises 
going to Switzerland instead, which I shall do, leaving 
here August 10 at the expiration of my three weeks' 



cure. 



I 



36] 



I 



4 



4 



IX 

Carlsbad, August 9. 

The past week has been beautiful; cool weather un- 
til to-day has prevailed. The country hereabout is very 
picturesque; the roads lead through the mountains and 
pine forests and the drives are most interesting. Yes- 
terday I made an excursion by carriage over to the spot 
where the famous Giesshiibler Springs are. It is a most 
interesting ride of some seven and a half miles and for 
some four miles through dense pine forests where not 
a ray of sunlight can penetrate. The road was perfect, 
as they all are over here, and we met many autos going 
and returning. The springs are owned by a man named 
Mattoni, an Italian, and he has spent large sums in beau- 
tifying all the country hereabout. There are walks, 
fountains, spring houses, and homes for all the men 
and women in his employ; there are nearly as many of 
the latter as of the former. The buildings are all of the 
best character and he has an elegant residence called 
Le Chateau Mattoni. It is an isolated spot on the banks 
of the Eger surrounded by a dense forest. Mattoni has 
a fine stable and numerous carriages. I met a young 
lady, I presume one of his daughters, driving out with 
a coachman and footman on the seat. She was elegantly 
dressed and a very pretty woman and as she passed a 
group of her father's workmen she greeted them with 
a smile and they took off their hats and responded so 
heartily and looked so very proud of their young mis- 
tress that it was indeed a very charming picture. 

[3T 



Munich, Sunday, August 11. 

I left Carlsbad yesterday at 11 : 20 a.m. and arrived 
here at 6 : 10 in the evening and came directly to this old 
hotel, the Vier Jahreszeiten. Norton and John will re- 
member it as having one of the best tables in Europe. 
It was a quaint old place when we were all there together 
but since then they have torn out all the lower part, made 
a covered driveway in front, with large office and loung- 
ing room, three separate dining rooms and a handsome 
front on the Maximilian Strasse, with electric lights, 
elevator, and a barber shop fitted with American chairs, 
and one can get a regular home shave, such as one can 
get nowhere else over here so far as I know. The table 
is, as of old, first class. I was greatly pleased to learn 
on arrival that the Wagner Opera season opens to-mor- 
row night and I have my seat engaged. The prices are 
absurd, $7-20 for a seat no better than you get in New 
York, but I had to go once. Americans are coming in 
throngs to hear the music, some thirty arriving at this 
house to-day. I suppose this is what put up the price. 
There is no opera at Bayreuth this year. " Tristan and 
Isolde " is on the programme for the opening. The 
curtain rises at four p.m., with an hour's recess for din- 
ner after the second act, and is over at nine. 

Tuesday I am going to see all three of Crazy Lud- 
wig's palaces, Hohenschwangau, Neuschwanstein, and 
Linderhof . I have seen the first two before. 

To-day I spent most of the time in the Crystal Pal- 
ace, where the artists have their exhibition. Here again 

38] 



I was most fortunate in striking. Munich at this time, 
for it is well worth seeing. There are some exceedingly 
good paintings, among which a portrait of an old man 
by Robert Buchtger, one of the Luitpold group, of 
which Carl Marr is a member. Carl Marr has only one 
picture here, a very lovely nude figure sitting with her 
back toward you. It is a small picture but was sold 
very soon after the Exhibition opened and brought 
$750. There are several beautiful portraits by Kaul- 
bach. He is also of the Luitpold group. Also some 
fine landscapes. There was one picture of a ragged 
little boy carrying a monkey on his shoulder, by Rien- 
acker, that was immensely good but had been sold at 
once. The collection is very extensive, filling all the vast 
number of rooms in this very large building. To-mor- 
row I shall visit the Pinacotheke, old and new, and then 
to the opera. 

I am sorry to find that Carl Marr has gone to his 
summer residence on the Chiemsee so I shall not see 
him. I went to his house to-day hoping at least to see 
his father. Carl is now President of the Munich Art 
Association and receives a salary from the Government. 

Munich has grown and changed greatly since I was 
here. Talk about .Ajnerican cities — this has kept up 
with the best of them, and such a fine city it is. A great 
many most elegant and expensive buildings have been 
erected and many fine fountains, statues, and monu- 
ments put up. The population is now over six hundred 
thousand and increasing rapidly. Several new bridges 

[39 



have been thrown over the Iser and the city is kept im- 
maculately clean and well watered. As an art centre it 
stands at the front. Most of the pictures in the Crystal 
Palace and in the two other large collections are on ex- 
hibition for the first time, showing a vast amount of 
work done by a great many artists, and the tone is vastly 
beyond the London summer exhibit at Burlington 
House. 

I must close and get this off. It is after ten at night 
and I have had a very busy but pleasant day. 



i 



40] 



X 



Munich, August 17. 

My last letter was finished and sent from here, and 
I must get oif my regular letter to-day as I go to Zurich 
to-morrow. 

Last Monday afternoon I went with many other 
Americans to hear " Tristan and Isolde " ; it was splen- 
didly given. The singers included Frau Wittich as 
Isolde and Frau Matzensuer as Brangaene, and Knolte 
as Tristan, who with excellent voices throughout and a 
magnificent orchestra left nothing to be desired except 
to hear it again. 

The Regent Luitpold is a great man for Bavaria and 
especially for Munich. He has built a new opera house 
here on the exact lines of the one at Bayreuth, only he 
has added a larger foyer, a restaurant, and put the stair- 
ways that go up to the different stages under cover. 
The seating, stage, orchestra, are all reproduced from 
the Bayreuth house. This Prinz Regente Theatre is 
built of stone and is most elegant and substantial. An 
improvement on the Bayreuth House has been made by 
putting small lights on the door posts on each side throw- 
ing a dim light on the stage, thus when the doors are 
closed you are not left in total darkness : N. and J. will 
remember that at Bayreuth this was the condition be- 
fore the curtain went up. This new house is only open 
once a year and that for twenty-one days of opera. I 
imagine that the object of building it was to kill off 

[41 



Bayreuth. The orchestra here is the best I have ever 
heard. 

The town is full of English, Germans, and Ameri- 
cans drawn here by this Wagner festival. This is the 
second year of this new house and it is packed at each 
performance. I was greatly pleased as I looked about 
before the doors were closed to see Dr. Rheinhart and 
Mr. Henderson of Berkeley University in the audience. 
They had just come over from Nuremberg to hear the 
music. Henderson left the next morning for Switzer- 
land while the Doctor is remaining with friends for 
a week or more. They had been travelling by rail and 
auto as the weather had permitted. 

Tuesday I went by rail to Fiissen. N. and J. will 
remember it is the place from which we drove to see 
the Ludwig II palaces of Hohenschwangau and Neu- 
schwanstein. Also saw in Fiissen the old castle, which 
I again visited, and then drove to Hohenschwangau and 
then over to Neuschwanstein, which seemed even more 
splendid than before. One can never imagine it from 
any word description. 

The boys will also remember that when they were 
along we discussed the question of driving another day 
and seeing Linderhof, the miniature Versailles that 
Ludwig constructed, and that we gave it up and re- 
turned to Munich, and that is where we made a big 
mistake. I hired a carriage that took me out to Reutte, 
about ten miles from Fiissen that evening, reaching 
there about seven thirty, early dusk here. Remained all 

12] 



night and started at seven o'clock Wednesday morning 
and drove to Linderhof by eleven thirty a.m. The road 
is through a narrow valley, most of the way by the side 
of a rushing mountain stream, with the mountains rising 
on both sides, covered with pine and beech forests; and 
then for several miles the valley widens and you drive 
by the shore of a lovely lake in which the mountains are 
all reflected, making splendid pictures. Linderhof is a 
small affair, a square building with rooms for servants 
and cooking, etc., on the first floor, with a grand marble 
staircase to the second floor, and on this floor various 
large rooms for receptions, music, library, dining, and 
one bedroom for his Majesty. The table in the dining 
room goes down through the floor and comes up, as no 
servant entered when the king ate. No one else was ex- 
pected to stay here over night, unless they slept with the 
king. His bed was large enough to hold half a dozen 
people, a great afi'air in heavy carved wood with gold 
leaf, as was everything else in these upper rooms. The 
carving and gilt and the mirrors and carpets are the 
main thing in this Fool's Paradise. 

There is a blue grotto built on top of the ground and 
covered by a board roof, and you go in at the mouth of a 
cave and stumble about amongst stalactites and dust 
and big boulders and come to a lake, and across the 
lake, which covers perhaps a quarter of an acre, you see 
a fantastic picture of naked men and women disporting 
themselves in a way scandalous in the eyes of the W. C. 
T. U., and you still go on, crouching where the cave 

[43 



grows smaller, and then expanding into large and lofty 
rooms, all quite as fine and real as a genuine cave. When 
you come out in the open again is when you feel funny, 
as you look upon the roof of boards under which you 
have been wandering. You don't see this before you go 
in, at any rate I didn't and I felt mighty cheap, don't 
you know, when I found I had been stumbling about in 
a lot of sand and dirt and rocks on top of the ground, 
under a shed, if you please. 

Then there are gardens laid out in geometrical fig- 
ures, with fountains and terraces and kiosks, etc., etc., 
with a Venus temple in the distance, but beyond it all 
the magnificent natural scenery of lofty mountains on 
every side. He was indeed a great locater of fine sites. 

Then I drove on, still amongst this entrancing sce- 
nery, for another hour and came out from the mountain 
gorge as it opened up on the plain and I was in Ober- 
ammergau, and, would you believe it, this is the town in 
the Austrian Tyrol that I had heard about all my 
life, that had been to me like a fairy tale, and here I 
was, and there was the house of Anton Lang, and here 
the great barn in which five thousand people gather 
once in ten years to act the great Passion Play that is 
known all over the world, and in which none but common 
peasants act the thrilling drama of the life of our Christ. 
You can imagine that I sat up and began to look around, 
figuratively speaking. It is a clean, excellently built 
little village, the houses standing mostly along a wind- 
ing road, with a stream running through and parallel to 

44] 



the road. The landscape is very lovely with the moun- 
tains on the three sides and the undulating plain lying 
to the north. The house in which the drama is enacted 
stands at the lower end of the street and is a plain, simple 
parallelogram about 180 feet long and 100 feet wide, 
with rows of seats running straight across the house and 
rising slightly to each row. It seats over four thousand 
without counting 800 on the stage. The stage is sepa- 
rated from the audience room by an open space (uncov- 
ered, that is) and thus the audience looks at the scenes 
as though they were at a distance and in the open air, this 
adding in a very ingenious manner to the eif ect. 

After an interesting hour I took train for Munich and 
was here for dinner. I had caught a bad cold going 
from Carlsbad to Munich and had a festering gum that 
made me quite miserable all the time until yesterday, 
when I had it lanced. It nearly killed me but to-day I 
am all right again. Talk about martyrdom, boiling oil, 
shooting arrows into Saint Sebastian until he looked like 
an overloaded pincushion, and all the other devilish con- 
trivances for torturing poor mortals, I assure you that 
none of them compare with a festering gum of four 
days' accumulation when it comes to sticking a knife 
into it as this Dutch dentist did yesterday, but, oh, the 
comfort of it after an agonizing ten minutes. I have 
enjoyed my stay here more than I can tell you even un- 
der disabihties, for the Galleries, especially the annual 
exhibits, are intensely interesting. I have been up there 
most of to-day. 

[45 



I shall enclose with this a little map which will give 
you some idea of my trip through the Bavarian Tyrol 
and also of the castles visited. I have to-day bought a 
fine photograph of Lenbach's " Bismarck," the " Castle 
of Neuschwanstein," and Gabriel Marx's " Christ and 
Mary Magdalen," now on exhibition here, all will in- 
terest you when I bring them home. 



46] 



XI 



ZiJEicH, August 20. 

We reached here Sunday afternoon and found very 
pleasant quarters at a Pension near the lake shore. This 
is a much larger city than I supposed it was, having a 
population of over 165,000 and is growing steadily. It 
lies at the head of the lake and the river Liounat comes 
with quite a fast current through the upper part of the 
city. The lake is surrounded by mountains and snow 
peaks are visible in the south, the valley, however, is wider 
than at Lucerne. There are many interesting things to 
do here ; going about the old city, trips on the lake, and 
visiting the verj'' interesting Landesmuseum. This 
building is a fine large structure and worthy of the valu- 
able collection gathered there. This consists of speci- 
mens of stone implements of the Stone Age, of tools 
and implements of the Bronze Age, both showing great 
aptitude for the necessities of life — warlike instruments 
as well as domestic conveniences. One curiosity was a 
pair of copper shears, similar to those used by us for 
shearing sheep; hammers, chisels, specimens of coins, 
armor, bows and arrows, guns, swords, etc., etc. There 
are also several rooms finished and furnished in exact 
reproduction of certain notable rooms that have had ex- 
istence in Swiss history. In one of these was a fine col- 
lection of articles in gold, silver, and gilt, vases, goblets, 
etc., dating back many centuries. There is a large 
library also in this building. The whole collection would 
possess great interest for the historian or antiquary. 

[4T 



I spent two hours walking through the old streets 
and narrow alleys seeing houses that date back 700 years. 
The streets were very narrow in those old days as a 
matter of protection against mobs — not a bad piece of 
foresightedness by any means. When a crowd of hood- 
lums run amuck they must have room to heave rocks 
and to mass themselves or they go to pieces. Most of 
the notable places have tablets inserted in the walls giv- 
ing the names and dates and thus making it easy to 
identify the same. The house where Charles the Bold 
resided is still in good repair and used as a business 
block. The houses of the poets Keller and Conrad Fer- 
dinand Meyer are still carefully preserved. In the 
tower of St. Peters there is a clock having the largest 
dial in diameter of any in the world, measuring thirty 
feet across its face. 

Zurich, August 22. 

Yesterday after visiting the dentist and having him 
extract thirty-five francs from me, I went to the 
Kiinstler Gut, or artists' hall, in which there are a few 
good paintings; one particularly by Roll interested me 
from having seen one of his pictures in the Paris Ex- 
position of 1889 called the Modern Europa. The pic- 
ture here shows the same lovely red-haired girl with 
wonderful flesh tints and fine figure and most fascinat- 
ing face, with eyes glowing through the brilliant shad- 
ows of her hair. The collection as a whole was not any- 
thing great. There are a few copies of old masters, a 
few portraits, and a genuine Teniers. 

48] 



An interesting side trip is made to Rapperswyl at 
the southern or upper end of the lake. You can do it 
easily by steamer in half a day. The old castle there 
stands on a rocky eminence directly on the shore of the 
lake. It was founded by Graf Rudolph towards the 
end of the twelfth century, soon after it came by mar- 
riage into the possession of the Duke of Hapsburg and 
later into the family of Hapsburg-Laufenburg. In 
1350 the city and castle were destroyed by fire by the 
Zurich Burgomaster Brun. Between 1354! and 1415 the 
Dukes of Hapsburg- Austria ruled there. In 1442 Rap- 
perswyl joined the Swiss Federation and the House of 
Hapsburg rebuilt the castle. Later it came into pos- 
session of the town authorities. In 1864 a colony of 
Poles fled from Poland to escape persecution by the 
Russians and came to this place, bringing a vast amount 
of their personal property, and the city granted them 
the use of a large number of rooms in the castle, which 
they have refitted and turned into a museum for preserv- 
ing and exhibiting these interesting things. Among 
these are many mementoes of Stanislaus, Sobieski, and 
other noted Poles ; portraits of many of their great men 
are here, but I was surprised to find nothing of Kossuth, 
as I had always looked upon him as one of their heroes. 
The heart of Kosciusko is preserved in a marble urn, also 
the death mask of Charles XII of Sweden. You will 
all remember Voltaire's History of this brave little fel- 
low; if any of you have not read it, do so by all means, 
it is a great bit of history. The mask shows a very 

[49 



small face, but a beautiful one and so full of energy and 
self-possession ; it is worth looking at. He made Europe 
hum for awhile ; he was one of the men of the past that 
never knew when he was whipped, much after the fashion 
of the gamey little Japanese. 

Monday I go to Lucerne for four days and then to 
Interlaken, where I shall make headquarters while I 
visit Lauterbrunnen, Grindewald, and other interesting 
points. They have a cog railway now going up the 
Jungfrau that is said to be the greatest engineering feat 
yet. Next week I shall have something to tell you, all 
about the play of Schiller's " Bride of Messina " at 
Brugg-Vindonissa, which I imagine will be a great per- 
formance from what the papers say about it. 



50] 



XII 



Zurich, August 25. 

As this morning is bright and promises a pleasant 
day we are all going to Brugg at noon to see Schiller's 
" Bride of Messina," to be given this afternoon in the 
Roman amphitheatre lately excavated. Brugg- Vindon- 
issa is built over an old Roman town of the first century ; 
it was a military post undoubtedly and had a large 
population. The amphitheatre which has lately been un- 
earthed held some ten thousand people; the arena has 
been partially floored and covered with seats and the 
benches on the circular sides and around the arena have 
been restored for about two-thirds of the way. Across 
one end a wall with wings and three entrance doors has 
been built, and behind these are the rooms for the actors. 

Later. — To-day every seat was taken and many sat 
on the grass back of the tiers ; there were four hundred 
people in the dramatis persons. Frau Ella Friedhoff 
took the part of Queen Isabella, Frau Paula Rieman 
the part of Beatrice, Ernest Bart of Don Manuel, and 
Henry Radibauer the part of Don Caesar; they all 
seemed to be very good, but our seats were miserable, 
the floor was on a level and we were back so far from 
the stage that we could only get a glimpse of the actors, 
but hear nothing, and the sun was fiercely hot, so we 
came away after the first act and returned to ZUrich. 

Referring again to Brugg, in 58 A. D. the Romans 
were defeated in battle by the Allemanen, one of the 

[51 



German tribes, and then the Romans retreated into 
Switzerland and founded Brugg and made a large and 
important city of it, and at the same time had camps 
at Mayence, Strassburg, and Cologne as outposts. They 
maintained themselves here at Brugg for 400 years, 
when they were finally driven out of the country. After 
the Germans came into power they destroyed the castle, 
temples, and villas, and other public buildings, and used 
these stones in the construction of the castle of Haps- 
burg and the large convent of Konigsfelden, both of 
which are now standing. The amphitheatre was built by 
ten thousand Roman soldiers. Since 1897 a company 
has been excavating these old Roman ruins and the dis- 
coveries have been placed in a museum in the town. 



52] 



XIII 

Interlaken, September 1. 

Last Monday I came from Zurich over to Lucerne 
and since then have been so busy, as you will learn in 
this, that I have not written anything except innumer- 
able postcards to the different ones, all of which I trust 
you will duly receive, as they will give you some idea of 
my pleasure in these journeyings. 

Of course, the first tiling to do in Lucerne is to walk 
from the railway station through the old covered wooden 
bridge where the ancient paintings on the boards at the 
ends of each span illustrate, in a coarse way, some event 
in the history of the city and canton. Then to see the 
wounded Hon of Thorwaldsen. I cannot describe it, no 
photograph gives you the spiritual essence of the thing. 
The master touched the rock and his spirit left its im- 
press on the sentient stone, and one must see the thing 
itself to be moved and stirred as few pieces of statuary 
in the world have power to do. There is a pathos and 
sorrow in the lion's face that bring you almost to tears, 
and you find no words to give expression to the grief 
that fills your soul as you look at it. I remembered 
it vividly and was so glad to see it once again. I believe 
it is one of the few things in this world that without 
words or action tends to make one nobler and better for 
seeing it. I went again and again to look at it. 

On Tuesday I took the little steamer to Alpnach- 
stadt and then the cog railway to the summit of Mt. 

[S3 



Pilatus. This is a most wonderful piece of engineering, 
the road is about five miles in length and ascends on 
gradients of from 27 to 48 degrees. It passes through 
four tunnels and is laid on a solid masonry bed the whole 
distance, with the rails and the centre cog-wheel rail all 
fastened to the masonry by heavy bolts, put in every 
few feet to keep them from creeping down the grade. 
The views as you ascend are most gorgeous and stupen- 
dous and one can get an idea of the fascination there 
must be in a balloon excursion. It takes an hour and a 
half to make the trip. 

At the top is an excellent and well-kept hotel where 
we had lunch; from the hotel they have built a walk 
which leads off to the right around the point of the 
mountain for over a mile, blasting it out of the solid 
rock, from which you get new and extended views of 
other mountains, lakes, and valleys, making a panorama 
of unusual grandeur and magnificence. The descent is 
made as slowly and carefully as the ascent and we are 
once again in Lucerne. 

Wednesday I spent in looking about the old town, 
and Thursday morning early took the small steamer 
down the lake to Fluellen and there the St. Gotthard 
Ry. to Goschenen ; this takes you over the most interest- 
ing part of the Hne as it winds back and forth, up and 
through the mountain sides, making two complete circles 
inside of the mountain, crossing roaring torrents on 
lofty viaducts, a marvel of engineering skill, human 
patience, and indomitable pluck. 

6i] 



At Goschenen we took stages drawn by five horses 
and started on the ascent to Andermatt some thousand 
feet higher up, winding and twisting beside the roaring 
torrent of the Reuss that pitches down from the moun- 
tains above Andermatt to the lakes. At Andermatt you 
are a thousand feet above the great St. Gotthard tun- 
nel and here you begin the ascent of the Furka Pass that 
takes you over the mountains to the foot of the Rhone 
Glacier at Gletch. It was raining at first but as we be- 
gan the steep ascent about four miles from Andermatt 
it became colder and the panorama opened to view. 
Snow peaks were all about and for four hours we 
ch'mbed the zigzags to the summit of the second highest 
pass of the Alps, and then the rapid descent into the 
valley where the Rhone rises at the glacier's foot. The 
coach stops at the top of the glacier, where the ice is over 
thi-ee hundred feet in depth, long enough to let the trav- 
ellers walk upon it and look into a blue grotto hewn into 
its icy face. Then we resume our seats and go bowling 
down the zigzag where the sharp turns make you hold 
your breath as you look down hundreds of feet below. 
We reach Gletch in fifty minutes and at eight o'clock 
P.M. get a good dinner and to bed early as we have to 
leave at six-thirty the next morning to go over the Grim- 
sel Pass to Meiringen. The boys will remember this 
Pass, as we walked over it, but in the opposite direction. 

A lady at Lucerne told me she had just come over 
it in a coach and I did not believe a word of it for I knew 
when we came over it on foot in '89 that it seemed to me 

[55 



an impossibility to ever build a road over it ; but here it 
was, and Friday I was up and had my breakfast and 
in my seat on the coach at six-fifteen. I would like to 
tell you of this wonderful road as we ascended from the 
Rhone valley to the summit of the Grimsel. It is built 
in zigzags all the way up, the turning points being car- 
ried on heavy stone walls of immense height where your 
heart beats fast as you look down into yawning gulfs 
and tremendous depths, but there it was and we passed 
the summit and saw the old Hospice far below us, and 
now comes the crowning glory from an engineering 
standpoint. N. and J. will probably remember the 
granite mountain facing the Hospice over which our 
guide led us as we toiled and grunted up its almost per- 
pendicular side. Well, if you can believe it, these Swiss 
engineers have gone to work and with $67,000 have hewn 
and blasted a zigzag road up the granite-faced moun- 
tain with protecting walls and posts, and now no more 
heart-ache and gasping breaths to get over this famous 
pass, the second most difficult one in Switzerland, and 
I hear they think of grappling with the Gemmi now. 

It was a marvellous ride down that mountain side 
and it seemed as if we would never reach the bottom, 
and I wished we would not for it is the most glorious 
ride in the world, I believe. I do not know that the sons 
will remember the River Aar that comes down from 
near the Hospice and rushes through a narrow gorge 
some two miles below it, but it does, and these Swiss en- 
gineers have gone into this gorge and carried a path 

56] 




GORGE OF TFIE AAR 



clear through it. It must be about a mile and a quarter 
in length and I left the coach with many others and 
walked through it. I have sent you all card photographs 
showing different portions of this suspended way so 
you will not require any weak description of mine to 
give you an idea of it. The torrent that roars through 
it prevents any talk and a deep reverent awe settles upon 
you as you traverse the dark and tortuous passage 
carried by steel braces and suspending rods over the 
tossing, foaming waters. It is immense. 

A young English snob in one of the coaches, when 
asked if he was not going to walk through, replied, " No, 
I don't care, don't you know, for torrents or such kind 
of things, don't you know, I suppose it is just like all 
the other stupid things thej^ want to show you in this 
blasted country, don't you know." He was the kind 
that ought to be soaked in boiling oil. 

When you come out of the lower end of the gorge 
you are only forty minutes from Meiringen and I pre- 
ferred to walk to getting into the coach again and so 
continued on. At Meiringen we had lunch and then 
took train to Brienz, about twenty minutes, then steamer 
to Interlaken, arriving at four p.m. 

Interlaken. 

Yesterday I took a train from here to Lauterbrun- 
nen. There is a railway now from here to Lauterbrun- 
nen, also from here to Grindelwald ; and also from Lau- 
terbrunnen to Grindelwald over the Wengernalp; also 
from Lauterbrunnen to Miirren; and they are building 

[57 



from the Scheidegg at the summit of the Wengernalp to 
the top of the Jungfrau. The track runs along by the 
side of the road we drove over up the valley of the 
Zweiliitschinen. From Lauterbrunnen we drove about 
four miles to see the falls of the Triimmelbach, and here 
I climbed up a pretty stiff trail for three or four hun- 
dred feet and went into the face of the mountain a little 
way on a suspended walk to see this stream which comes 
pouring through an underground passage and falls in 
wild agony to the bottom of this enclosed pit. It was a 
wonderful sight, the roar was deafening and the spray 
so dense that you get thoroughly drenched unless you 
have an umbrella. From this drive I returned to Lau- 
terbrunnen and took the almost perpendicular cable 
road up to the summit, three thousand feet, and then an 
electric car for twenty-five minutes around the face of 
the mountain to Miirren, a little mountain hamlet with 
several hotels, where you can heave a rock from the 
path that will drop 3000 feet before it smashes itself in 
the valley below. Great place for a sleep walker to 
maunder about ! That is about as near as I ever expect 
to come to a balloon lookout. 

I returned here last evening in time for dinner. This 
morning I was up early, intending to go to Lauterbrun- 
nen and cross the Wengernalp and take the side trip to 
the Scheidegg up the Jungfrau as far as they have the 
line completed, but the barometer was low, clouds hov- 
ered over the head of the Jungfrau, Monch, and Eiger, 
and so I concluded to postpone my trip and bring my 

58] 



diary up to date and get this weekly letter off. I have 
in a way accomplished the latter, but I feel as if it were 
most weak and ineffectual to give you any idea of the 
experiences of the past week. The sublime spectacles 
that I have enjoyed and at the same time have been 
overwhelmed with are beyond all my powers of descrip- 
tion. One lives on a higher plane in this land of moun- 
tains, lakes, and torrents ; the small things of life grow 
even more infinitesimal, and you walk and think amongst 
great things, and if there is anything godlike about you 
it now becomes visible and a man should be better in 
every way after straying amongst things so uplifting 
and ennobling. 

In my next letter I shall have the Wengernalp and 
the Jungfrau trip to tell of. I don't know how long I 
shall remain here but I imagine that by the middle of 
the week I shall move on to Geneva. 



[59 



XIV 



Geneva, September 8. 

I HAD a very good week in Interlaken, although as 
usual it rained a great deal. One day I went to Lau- 
terbrunnen and there took the cog railway up to the 
Scheidegg (where we all stayed over Saturday night in 
'87) ; then took the new electric line they are building 
up the Jungfrau, and went as far as they have the line 
finished, some three miles. After the first half mile the 
line enters a tunnel and stays there ( which I might have 
known if I had thought twice about it, for when you 
reach the line of perpetual snow you must be under 
cover) . The only interesting thing about it is that every 
once in a while they have built lateral tunnels out to 
the side of the mountain and here you can alight and 
walk out and look down immeasurable depths on moun- 
tains and seas of ice, and over the rest of the world, and 
it all seems as if you were up in a balloon looking down 
on a panorama that flattens out, and the sky line em- 
braces a vast and varied landscape. We reached an 
elevation at Eismeer of 10,363 feet, and my ears buzzed 
as if I had taken an overdose of quinine. It wasn't 
pleasant and I wouldn't go again even on an earnest 
invitation. 

It takes about two hours to go up there and back, 
and at Scheidegg we again take the cog road and de- 
scend into Grindelwald. How difl^erent from the stormy 
Sunday morning when we all together tramped down 

60] 



through a rain and snow storm and got so bedraggled 
and gormed up with mud that it took hours to get re- 
spectable again I 

Lauterbrunnen and Grindelwald have changed 
greatly since then ; large hotels, many beautiful chalets, 
and good roads have made all these favorite routes very 
comfortable. 

Thursday I left Interlaken and came by the new 
electric railway over the mountains to Montreux. This 
electric line is, as N. would say, " a dandy." Fine cars, 
six in a train, with large plate glass windows and a 
handsome dining car where an excellent dinner is served. 
Every seat was taken. The line follows a narrow valley, 
gradually climbing higher and higher; rounds project- 
ing corners on precipitous waUs of masonry; and crosses 
gorges where the thought of a broken flange, axle, or a 
rail fairly makes your eyes bulge out and your hair 
stand on end, and you lift yourself up so as to make 
your weight as light as possible as you gaze into the 
depths below. Thanks to the conservative Swiss spirit, 
the engineer or motorman runs with care over these 
perilous places, and yet in spite of this one is apt to 
think of his past life and dread the absolute justice that 
would be in play should he by such easy means be trans- 
ported across the Styx. Even in my own case I thought 
it would have been better to have either stayed at home 
or not to have ventured on this ride. But it was great. 
After a few hours of this sort of thing we crossed the 
summit and away, away down thousands of feet below 

[61 



us Lake Leman came in sight, its placid waters gleam- 
ing under the rays of a brilliant sun. 

As you have just been informed, the way hither to 
the summit was not without features; but it was abso- 
lutely plain compared to the way down to Montreux. 
I prayed the brake would hold and that man in his wis- 
dom had fashioned some way to suspend a train of cars 
in mid air, and then gave myself up to scenery. At 
Montreux as you look up, and at about the point where 
you would expect to see angels, there is an immense 
hotel. When any scientist wishes to look closely into 
the backyard of the inhabitants of Mars, he goes up to 
this hotel, starting a few weeks in advance. That is, I 
suppose he does, for it is, I believe, the loftiest site for a 
hotel in the world. Well, now when we pitched over this 
summit that I was speaking of, do you know that hotel m 

seemed as far below us as it did above us when I reached M 

Montreux ! It was a panorama worth coming to Europe 
to see and as a feat of engineering has no parallel, unless 
it be the St. Gotthard, but there they dipped into the 
ground while here they keep outside. Of course, there 
are many short tunnels, but they do double and twist and 
jump gorges and turn corners where you can look down 
and down and down and then wonder where the bottom 
is, and finally you dip into a long tunnel, and as you 
come into daylight once more, here you are at the foot 
of the mountain and in the station. 

Montreux is a lovely place, right at the end of Lake 
Leman and quite near the point where the Rhone empties 

62] 



into it. The Castle of Chillon,made famous by Byron in 
his poem of " The Prisoner of Chillon," is close at hand, 
about twenty minutes by train. I went out and spent 
half an hour after my arrival going through it, and was 
interested in seeing the signatures of Byron and Victor 
Hugo cut on the side of one of the columns that support 
the groined arches of the roof of the chamber where 
Bonivard, the Geneva patriot, was chained for six years. 
The castle was built on solid rock right on the water 
level, and I was shown the place where prisoners were 
hung and the shaft down which their bodies were shot 
into the lake, a grewsome place; also the post where 
they were chained while their feet where tickled with hot 
irons to make them confess. I could not help thinking 
that perhaps some arrangement of this kind would be 
of service to our railway commissioners in extracting 
evidence from recalcitrant Harrimans and John D. 
Rockefellers — but, alas, those blessed times and fashions 
are gone into the limbo of the past. 

Friday morning at ten I went aboard a small steamer 
and started for this place. The day was perfect, the air 
clear, and shortly after leaving, Mt. Blanc was to be 
seen with its sparkling silver summit piercing the clouds. 
It was in sight nearly all of the way, occasionally a va- 
grant cloud, fleecy and intangible, would dim its summit, 
but soon to go, and the day was one of pure delight. 

Saturday, which was yesterday, I spent with my den- 
tist and looking in the watch shops where I left my 
watch with its maker to have it put in good order. To- 

[63 



day I have been roaming about during the intervals of 
recuperation while writing this letter. I have seen the 
church where John Knox thundered forth his anathema 
from 1555 to 1557; I sat in the same chair where John 
Calvin used to cogitate over the hell to which he con- 
signed all unbelievers. It is an old three-cornered, stiff, 
straight-backed affair like its master. 

I shall be here until Thursday and then go to the 
Italian lakes, to Pallanza, Bellagio, Como, and reach 
Milan about week after next. I am feeling well and 
enjoying every day. I say this as you might think I was 
quite ill to send you such an extraordinary amount of 
drivel, but it is the best I can do. 



U] 



XV 



Bellagio, Lake Como, 

Monday, September 16. 

I REMAINED in Geneva until Thursday noon of last 
week and on the last day met Frank Kean, who re- 
gretted with me that we did not sooner know of each 
other's whereabouts, for we could have had many nice 
visits together. Also met Ben Miller on the street, and 
we may meet again, as he was thinking of going to Flor- 
ence. Kean is consul at Geneva and I knew it, but it 
had escaped my mind and I didn't recollect his name 
when I first saw him. He has aged considerably. I was 
sorry not to see his wife, as she is a character worth see- 
ing. He doesn't like Switzerland nearly as well as Italy. 

Thursday a.m. I took the railway for Chamonix. 
Norton and John will remember that we had to take a 
diligence when we went over, but now the Government 
has built an electric line and it is certainly a wonder. It 
was a very expensive piece of work and requires vast 
bridges of stone and supporting walls on the mountain- 
side of great strength. The trip to Chamonix is made 
in some five hours as against a long day's ride in a coach. 
Chamonix was as interesting as ever and I looked 
through a telescope and saw a party of three above the 
Grands Mulcts coming down. I spent the night there 
and had glorious views of old Mt. Blanc. It has not 
diminished in size or importance in all the years since 
we saw it before. The great feature of the week, how- 

[65 



ever, was the ride from Chamonix over to Martigny. 
The sons will remember that we drove in two voitures 
over the Tete Noir — now the electric line is carried over 
another pass east of this, but not yet finished, as there 
is a tunnel a mile in length uncompleted. We went by 
electric line some six miles, then took a diligence and 
began the ascent over the pass; it climbs right up by 
zigzags and you can count the roads below up to six at 
a time as you look back. Then from the summit, down 
to Chatelard, is a long interesting grade where the 
horses went as fast as they could keep their feet under 
them. It was a gorgeous ride and somewhat thrilling, 
but as peaceful waters compared to what was to follow 
when we took the cars again. From here to Martigny 
the electric line is completed and is the most wonderful 
piece of railway building I have seen yet. For awhile 
we ran on plain rails, twisting and turning, with tremen- 
dous gulfs yawning below us, the track clinging to the 
almost perpendicular rocky sides of the mountain, and 
here you are surely inclined to review your past life and 
regret your misdemeanors and promise reformation if 
you are allowed to pass in safety around some of these 
hair-raising points. You glory in the achievement but 
hold your breath in amazement, and when you feel the 
motorman throwing in the clutches to the cog rail and 
glance ahead and see the whole affair of rails, roadbed, 
and telegraph line drop suddenly out of sight only a 
few rods beyond, you have an almost irresistible inclina- 
tion to rush for the rear end and jump before you come 

66] 



to the falling-off place. And just at this moment you 
catch sight of the mouth of a tunnel and looking down, 
down, down an everlasting distance you see the other 
end of this tunnel, which has in winding through the 
bowels of the mountain made two complete circles with 
a descent of hundreds of feet, and if you have not 
already repented of your past sins, you begin the opera- 
tion without any further delay or parley. Some benign 
mood of Providence on this particular day prevented 
our train from slipping off from the dizzy height and 
landing us, cars, passengers, and accumulated sins, far 
down in the gulf below. 

I have recounted our rides over the Furka, Grimsel, 
and Interlaken to Montreux, up and down Mt. Pilatus, 
have hinted at the extraordinary feats in getting from 
Geneva to Chamonix; but when you have gone from 
Chatelard to Martigny over the new electric line, you 
have seen the accomplishment of miracles that throw all 
the myths of history into the remotest district of dimin- 
ishing perspective. Luckily at Martigny you reach the 
uninteresting valley of the Rhone and you take a long 
breath and get a welcome rest after the strain on your 
nerves, so that when you reach Brieg you are quite ready 
to take in the Simplon. To my surprise you enter this 
great tunnel, the longest in the world, 12.15 miles, at 
once on leaving the station and on a level with the main 
line. Electric locomotives are attached to the train from 
Geneva and they start on a goodly pace, some forty 
miles an hour, and rush at full speed through the main 

[67 



tunnel, and in eighteen minutes you come to daylight 
and a brief glimpse of the valley and again you are in 
a long tunnel, and so out and in for another fifteen 
minutes and you are at Domodossola. Lay in a big 
stock of adjectives before j'^ou leave Brieg, for you will 
want them all when you undertake to sum up your ideas 
of the enormous cost, the patience, the grit it took to 
jSrst contemplate, second to survey, estimate, and finally 
build this last great achievement of the animal who it is 
said was made in the image of God. You feel like wor- 
shipping this pigmy as a god. 

From Domodossola it is a short ride to a little station 
where you leave the train and a slow omnibus takes you 
on a level road some four miles to Pallanza, a charming 
httle town on the shores of Lake Maggiore, and we 
find entertainment at the Hotel Bellevue fronting on 
the lake with the Borromean Islands full in view. 

Bellaqio, September 16. 

Saturday I took a rowboat and visited the two 
islands, Isola Bella and Isola Madre, belonging to the 
Borromean family. There are chateaus on both of 
them; the one of Isola Bella is kept up and the family 
spend a portion of each year there. At this time there 
was no one there and visitors were allowed. It is an 
immense place and the old fellow who built it back in the 
seventeenth century must have been quite a person in 
his own conceit, for he built a guard-room for his sol- 
diers, a great lookout tower, and, if you please, a throne 

68] 



room with a sure-enough throne — ^and it looks as if he 
had occupied it many times, but this might have been 
moths, you know, but he had his throne all right. I did 
not see any torture chambers nor appliances for tickling 
the feet or boiling the oil, although I warrant you he 
did not stop far short of these. There are vast rooms, 
council chambers, dancing halls, dining halls, where one 
could seat a hundred guests, libraries, conversation 
rooms, and an immense music room with grand pianos, 
violins, guitars, etc., etc. Everything on a most gorgeous 
scale and rococo to no end. A high, strong stone wall 
stands perpendicularly on the water's edge all the way 
around and there are only two points where you can get 
on the island. The thing of great interest to me, how- 
ever, was the garden and grounds. The Duke of Bor- 
romeo was a botanist and he has, I suppose, the most 
wonderful collection of trees, shrubs, and flowers in the 
whole world. There is no country but what has contrib- 
uted to his collection; American pine trees, California 
redwoods. New Zealand plants, and the remotest parts 
of the world have been ransacked to get the rarest and 
best. The largest rhododendron tree in the world is here, 
measuring over two feet in diameter ; trees from Japan, 
orange, lemon, fig, and everything one ever heard of. 
The garden is made on solid rock, the soil being all 
brought from the main land on boats, and you can get 
a fair idea of the cost when I tell you that the garden is 
carried up ten terraces and surmounted on the top by a 
grotto and statuary and fountains. They were great 
fellows in those old days. 

[69 



The Isola Madre has a small chateau that is not 
occupied and is fast going to the dogs. 

Milan, September 21. 

I have neglected to speak of the very pleasant and 
not at all wearisome trip from Pallanza to Bellagio. 
You take a steamer at 10: 30 a.m. and touch at Intra, 
a busy little silk-manufacturing town, and then cross to 
the other side of the narrow lake and then back again, 
finally stopping at Luini, and then rail to Pontresa, 
then steamer again to Lugano, where you remain an 
hour, giving plenty of time to visit the church of Santa 
Maria and see the large frescoes of Luini. They are 
quite worth seeing and I only regretted that the paint- 
ings were covered and I could not find the individual 
who had charge, so I had to come away without accom- 
plishing that; bat I did have the surprise and pleasure 
of seeing Julia Marlowe looking at the frescoes and I 
made up my mind to speak to her on the grounds of 
having been once introduced by Garita Barry, but she 
disappeared at Menaggio and I am afraid I won't see 
her again. She has a sad look and shows wear, but she 
has a wonderfully nice good face and is very attractive. 

Taking another steamer from Lugano you go to 
Porlezza, passing just before reaching there the old 
castle and stronghold owned by the Borromeans and 
leased to the robber brothers Mazzarda who used to raid 
the country round about and were held in fear by the 
surrounding villages. It is a grand old place with round 

70] 



towers on the sides commanding all approaches and is 
very large and stately, covering entirely the small island 
on which it stands. The railway line from Luini to 
Pontressa follows the banks of a swift-flowing stream 
which has a very tortuous course with mountains rising 
on both sides. From Porlezza to Menaggio the line 
crosses a low pass and on a heavy grade where a cog rail 
is necessary as the line descends into Menaggio. There 
after an aggravating delay we take a steamer and cross 
Lake Como, reaching Bellagio in fifteen minutes. 



[71 



XVI 

Milan, Sunday, September 22. 

I WROTE you from Bellagio last. I remained there 
until Friday morning as I very much wanted to visit the 
Villa Melzi which I had never seen and which is only 
open to the public on Thursdays. In the meantime, I 
went across the lake and visited the Villa Carlotta, the 
property of the Duke of Saxe-Meiningen. In the 
marble hall saw the celebrated " Triumph of Alexan- 
der" by Thorwaldsen, and Canova's masterpiece "Cupid 
and Psyche." Spent an agreeable morning in the gar- 
den, which displays a wealth of southern vegetation, with 
superb cedars and magnolias. I also availed myself of 
my leisure by visiting the Villa Serbelloni and the Villa 
Julia and taking a drive over the mountain road to a 
place where one gets a long stretch of the Lago di Lecco. 

Thursday morning I spent in the gardens of the 
Villa Melzi. They contain nearly every known shrub 
and plant and to my great surprise two fine trees of the 
Sequoia gigantea, which I know only from seeing them 
near the Yosemite Valley. The grounds are beautifully 
laid out and have many fine statues, the principal ones 
being those of Beatrice and Dante by Canova. There 
is also a very beautiful chapel in which are the tombs 
of several of the Melzi family and a bas-relief portrait in 
marble by Canova of a young son who died a few years 
since. This is a most charming thing and seemed such a 
desirable way of preserving the memory of the very 
handsome lad. 

72] 



Friday I came here, stopping over a train at Como 
to see the cathedral there, which is quite worth a visit. 
The first thing I did on arriving here was to go to the 
great Duomo, and was more impressed than ever with its 
vastness and grandeur. There is no other that quite 
equals it ; it is such an imposing and satisfying minster. 
The roof seems so high, the columns so massive, and its 
great breadth seems to me to be most sublime and soul- 
satisfying. I climbed to the roof yesterday and sat for 
an hour looking over its vast expanse of pinnacles and 
statues, the delicate tracery of its screens, and the every 
inch of carved surface. There does not seem to be any 
place where a figure of some kind is not cut ; even away 
up to the very summit of the great dome, delicate little 
heads, a flower, a leaf, a touch of some kind is given to 
the surface of the stone. It is a dream in stone, if one 
may call it so. Later in the day and yesterday I went 
to see Da Vinci's *' Last Supper." The poor thing is 
growing dimmer and dimmer each year and not much of 
Da Vinci's work remains plain enough to enjoy. I 
visited several other interesting churches and finally went 
to the Campo Santo, or cemetery, and looked about for 
an hour. It is wonderful to see what an immense 
amount of money has been and is still being spent on 
these magnificent private tombs. There seems to be no 
end to the extravagance. For the most of them I had 
only sharp criticisms, but there are a few that really 
seemed truly noble and worthy. 

This morning I have been out to see Certosa of 

[73 



Pavia, of which you will remember I have a splendid 
photograph. I was bound to see it in its reality, and I 
am glad that I have at last done so. It is the most ex- 
tensive and finest monastery in the world, it is claimed, 
and I am sure I have never seen anything to compare 
with it. Its lofty and unique tower, its immense clois- 
ters surrounding many acres of ground, and the interior 
of its splendid church with its fourteen chapels most 
richly decorated with carvings, mosaics, paintings, and 
precious stones, all make it a world wonder. I cannot 
understand how anyone in Milan can pass without visit- 
ing it. 

To-morrow morning I leave for Venice, stopping 
over a train at Verona, and next Sunday I shall have 
Venice for my subject. 

I am tired, as I have not slept much for two nights 
owing to mosquitoes, and so will make this letter short 
and take a nap. I keep splendidly well and you all know 
my dear love for you. 



74] 



XVII 

Venice, Saturday, September 27. 

On my way here from Milan I stopped over a train, 
about three hours, at Verona. I had never been there 
before and was greatly surprised to find so much of 
interest. The coliseum quite takes rank with the famous 
one in Rome, not so large, seating only 27,000 as against 
80,000, I believe, in the latter, but in the one in Verona 
you can see the whole thing as the Romans saw and 
used it. The seats, stairways, passages, etc., are all as 
perfect as ever ; the only thing lacking is the last and 
higher row of seats that extended over to the outer wall. 
This has been destroyed with the exception of a small 
fragment which remains and has wisely been restored 
and is kept in good condition. The general plan and 
form are the same as in Rome and its construction was 
of the same period. It is a famous old place and the 
Veronese use it for all the great shows and demonstra- 
tions. I was sorry I could not see it filled with people. 

They also have the extensive ruins of a very large 
theatre that must have been contemporaneous with the 
amphitheatre. This they are uncovering and restoring 
and in a few years will have another one of the curiosities 
of the world. The foregoing are realities of which 
Verona may boast, but they are most unwise in pretend- 
ing to show you the tomb of Juliet when in fact they 
show you an old stone watering trough which they have 
hauled into what was once a stable, and they charge 

[75 



you a franc for thus victimizing you. They should stop 
this; they have too many good things to show without 
resorting to any such fakes. 

Verona is the most strongly fortified city in Italy. 
It is overpowering when you come to go over and 
around these tremendously extensive and expensive 
works. I had no idea what could be done in this line 
before. 

Since arriving here I have put in every day looking 
in the churches and art galleries and riding in the gon- 
dolas. They have built a very handsome structure in the 
Gardini Publici used for the international art exhibition 
which is held every two years, and I am fortunate in 
being here to see this one. The walls are covered (that 
means a great many pictures) in all the rooms, the im- 
pressionists being very largely in the majority. Some 
of these are wonderfully good, and I have come to the 
conclusion that in no other school can the ordinary lay- 
man be surer of his ground than in this. In other words, 
an artist must be an artist to do anything as an impres- 
sionist. If he isn't great he is a fearful dauber that the 
merest layman will discover. There would be no ques- 
tion whether an impressionist picture was worth $4.50 
or $450. K. will understand this. 

As I said before, there are some fine pictures on ex- 
hibition, one by a Norwegian, a full-sized figure of a 
man in hunting costume, wearing glasses, with brilliant 
red hair and freckled face, and clothes of a very light 
cream color; it was excellent. I am going out there 

76] 



again to see it. There were four pictures by Belgian 
artists that were very excellent, and if I had a place to 
hang another picture I would certainly buy one of these. 

Of course, I have been revelling in Veronese, Titian, 
Tintoretto, BeUini, Palma Vecchio, Bonifazio, and 
Bordone. Tintoretto was a perfect demon for work. 
He didn't mind painting pictures by the mile any more 
than any ordinary man would mind painting a fence or 
a barn. You can't find a church in Venice that hasn't 
one or more of his pictures. He covered the tremendous 
walls and ceihngs of the Doge's Palace with his brush, 
and the King's palace has several of his, while no one 
knows how many outlying ones there may be throughout 
Italy. One is absolutely unable to imagine any one man 
leaving such acres of canvas behind him, covered by 
such coloring and intricate drawings; and the same 
might be said of Titian, but he lived to be 99 years of 
age, and one of his pictures he painted only a short time 
before his death, and I imagine he would be painting 
yet if he hadn't caught the plague. He was a wonder- 
ful old man. 

We have had a most splendid week of cloudless blue 
and soft pleasant days. Venice is full of charm as well 
as of mosquitoes and fleas. The latter have not bothered 
me much but I hear much profanity from people who 
are here for the first time. 



177 



XVIII 

Florence, October 6. 

I HAVE received letters from you all here, so full of 
interest, and have sent you postal cards which I trust 
reached you without losing their chann. I have kept 
busy during the past week. Left Venice Monday morn- 
ing, hoping to have forty minutes in Bologna in which 
to see the Leaning Towers ; but, as usual here in Italy, 
the train was over half an hour late and so our stay 
there was reduced to ten minutes, which I occupied in 
denouncing the Government for the way they conduct 
their railways. The train was so crowded that many 
passengers, first as well as second class, had to stand 
up in the corridors the entire trip. I fortunately went 
to the station in Venice nearly an hour ahead of leaving 
time and got a good seat in a six-passenger compart- 
ment and kept it. It does one real good to hear the 
English denounce everything in sight when they do not 
get the best. The way these old English cats go on 
when the gods fail to make provision for them is the 
richest thing you run across over here. They think they 
are the specially annointed of the Lord. 

I have had a busy week here and have enjoyed every 
day. It has been showery, but between the dampnesses 
one could get about. I saw the names of Mrs. Dr. B. 
and the two Misses M. and Vice-Admiral J. and wife 
in the bank register and called on the former and had a 
short pleasant visit. I was surprised to find the two 

78] 



Misses M. quite gray-haired; I remembered them as 
quite attractive young girls, and here to find them 
middle-aged women was a hint to me that I was not 
a youngster any more by any means. We do grow old, 
the best of us. The boys will remember Captain J., who 
was at 27 Reichsstrasse in Dresden, and I take it that 
this Vice- Admiral is the same man, at any rate I am 
going to try to find him this week. I quite wonder if he 
is accompanied by the wife who was in Dresden, for it 
hardly seems conceivable that even a military or naval 
man, be he ever so strong and tough, could exist for so 
long a period with such a thorn in the flesh as I remember 
Mrs. J. to have been. I at least have such a curiosity 
in the matter that I feel I must hunt him up and see 
what he looks like. He was a nice fellow and I remem- 
ber how we all pitied him. 

I have found many agreeable Americans here at the 
Pension and they are of the class that one may be proud 
of. This is a very good house so far as rooms and board 
go, but you have to climb sixty-four stairs to get to it. 
When I wrote for a room the Madame Riccioli (pro- 
nounced RitchioU) replied that she could give me a good 
room on the first floor. She meant her first floor; there 
are three or four other floors below hers, but of this she 
made no mention in the correspondence, which was tak- 
ing rather a low-down advantage of my ignorance. I 
don't mind so much as I only have to crawl up this dis- 
tance twice a day, and it is a good method of testing my 
breathing apparatus and heart action. 

[79 



I have this week visited most of the attractions, as 
Baedeker calls them, and to-day have had a most de- 
lightful time. Mr. Marshall Cutler, who has a store 
here where he sells all kind& of antiquities, both old and 
new, invited me to visit them, which I did ; and we drove 
to Fiesole and back by the way of the Leader Castle (the 
Vinci gliata), where we all alighted and spent over an 
hour going through this most interesting, restored old 
castle that dates back to the tenth century. Leader was 
an Englishman who had great taste and plenty of 
money. He purchased this old ruin and found the origi- 
nal plan of it and spent many thousand pounds sterling 
in reconstructing it, with many improvements but still 
adhering to the original design. It is a most splendid 
affair. After years of great labor and vast expense he 
finally completed it and then died and the place is for 
sale for one million francs, I was going to say dollars. 
No one can visit it without a special permit, which it is 
quite difficult to get, and I could not have seen it with- 
out Cutler's aid. His wife is charming, and when we 
returned from our ride, we had an elegant Italian 
luncheon in one of the quaint old hotels. 

James E , whom I know quite well, who for- 
merly lived in Chicago but now lives in New York, came 
over here last year and bought the famous Palazzo Pal- 
nieari, where the stories of Boccaccio were written and 
the plots laid. It is the place that Queen Victoria always 
rented when she spent a winter here. E has em- 
ployed Cutler to modernize this place, put in steam heat, 

80] 



electric lights, open plumbing, and in short make it a 
modern house, and he is now engaged on it. He expects 
to take a full year to complete it, and while he is at it 
has moved himself and family from his own house out 

to one of the detached houses of E 's so as to be 

on the work as much as possible himself, and it was here 
that I visited him to-day. Some day this week he is 
going to take me over the place (seventy-four acres) 
and show me the plan he has in mind for the improve- 
ment. I shall find interest in this, I am sure. 

This week I shall visit the Certosa, the National 
Museum, call on Gelli, who painted my portrait, and 
the Vice- Admiral. I have called twice on Signora Ver- 
onica Mattae, who painted those two charming pictures 
for your mother which hang on our walls at home. She 
remembered me at once and was very cordial; she has 
always sent us Christmas cards ever since we first met 
her. The whole family are artists and they have a large 
studio quite near the Riccioli pension. There is Ver- 
onica and her husband with a grown-up daughter and 
son ; the mother, Veronica, probably the highest in rank, 
although the son and daughter paint remarkably well. 

Monday Morning. 

It is a lovely morning and the rain seems to be over. 
It has been very dry so that the Arno was only a creek, 
now it is quite a river. The day will be spent visiting the 
Palazzo Vecchio and the Artists' Exhibition, and to- 
morrow I shall give to the Uffizi. The Dutch School 

[81 



is very well represented here. I have about got my fill 
of Virgins and halos, always barring Bartolommeo and 
Del Sarto. I have also found the Luinis more satisfy- 
ing than ever before; he was a fine draughtsman. The 
splendid Van Dycks and the fine portraits of Rembrandt 
are always a delight. I suppose John and Norton have 
forgotten them. The tapestries I have not seen yet, 
shall do them this week, and shall not leave here until I 
see all that is of importance. 

I find that the expenses are much greater throughout 
Italy than before; for instance, they charge you twice 
if you go from the UflSzi to the Pitti through the gal- 
lery ; they charge you for looking at the Forum in Rome ; 
they charge a fee at all the churches and monasteries; 
and the result is that Italian money is par now. When 
we were here before there was a heavy discount which 
made it very cheap getting about. The taxes are op- 
pressive, especially on salaried persons, being something 
like 17 per cent., and on business generally, unless you 
buy up the assessor, which I take it is generally done. 

I hope to get another mail from home to-morrow 
and hope you are all well. I continue in excellent health 
and enjoy seeing things. 



XIX 

Rome, October 13. 

I WAS in great luck yesterday. The coffee was so 
bad at the Riccioli that I hurried my sightseeing at Flor- 
ence and decided to leave there Saturday a.m. in place 
of waiting over until Monday, as I had originally con- 
templated. To-day I am told that the railroad men are 
all on a strike north of here and no trains running be- 
tween here and Florence and nobody knows when they 
will resume, so I say I am in luck. I reached here last 
evening and the first thing after breakfast I went over 
to St. Peter's. You — that is the two sons — ^will remem- 
ber the rather sharp hill that we had to go over from the 
Piazza de Spagna to the railway station or the Baths of 
Diocletian — well, to my great surprise and astonishment 
they have built a splendid tunnel, some 1400 feet long, 
about 60 feet wide, and I should say at least 40 feet in 
height, through the hill, connecting the Via Condotti 
(that's the street our hotel was on when we were here) 
with the wide and handsome Via Nazionale. It is lined 
throughout with glazed white tile, with ornamental 
moulded bands. Double street-car hnes run through it, 
and the portals are of marble and very rich. It is about 
the handsomest thing at night when it is lit with electric 
lights that I ever saw. Four-story buildings stand on 
top of it, and parks and trees. It must have cost a vast 
sum. Well, you go through this in going from this 
hotel over to St. Peter's. 

[83 



I got there just in time to hear the splendid singing 
and spent nearly half an hour with this fine music re- 
sounding through the massive building. The voices are 
the best I ever heard, and the male soprano was sweet 
and musical as any woman's. 

Mj'' crude conclusions are that St. Peter's is not so 
interesting as many other churches and cathedrals. 
There are evidences of great expenditures, of a sort of 
grandeur; but there is a dull sameness about it that is 
tiresome. The capitals and friezes are all alike; the 
tombs are mostly modern, and with the exception of 
those by Thorwaldsen, Canova, and Bernini are of no 
artistic merit. The architecture is heavy, great angular 
colunms support circular arches, there are no stained- 
glass windows, no lofty Gothic aisles, no work that looks 
like loving labor with deep religious expression. The 
mosaics are not artistic, they are poor copies of famous 
pictures, and no labor can give life to a picture by mosaic 
work. It is a curious exhibition of patience and clear- 
ness of distinction in color. And that is all. As to the 
outside, it is a great big thing and there you are. It is 
all well enough to hold a big crowd and to carry the 
Pope about in a chair on men's shoulders; but as a 
great minster dedicated to man's higher nature, one to 
inspire religious feeling and to raise one's thoughts, St. 
Peter's is a failure. The marbles are fine and costly, 
but they are all in mathematical figures with patterns 
like a bed quilt. No cunningly wrought out artistic 
work, but hammer and chisel at so much per diem and 
you must hurry up and get your job done. 

84] 



It is to be hoped that the great minster that they are 
building in New York on the Hudson River will have 
none of this commercial contract-looking work about it. 
I speak of St. John's Cathedral. It is said that Michael 
Angelo once boasted that he would make the dome of 
St. Peter's so large that you could put the whole of the 
Pantheon inside of it. I am loath to believe that Michael 
was such an ass as this, for the fact is that you could put 
nearly seven domes of the size of St. Peter's inside the 
Pantheon. For instance, St. Peter's dome has a diam- 
eter of a little over seventy feet; the dome of the Pan- 
theon has a diameter of 142 feet and the height from 
the floor to the summit of the dome is 142 feet. 

The church is so much cleaner and better kept than 
the other churches of Itaty that this is at once noticeable ; 
but it has not the richness in masterpieces, either in sculp- 
ture or paintings, that many of the others have. St. 
Peter's toes seem to hold out yet, although I suppose I 
saw twenty or thirty idiots kiss them during the few 
minutes I stood near it, but some of the poorest creatures 
that did so had sense enough to either interpose their 
handkerchief between their lips and the stumps of toes, 
or else at least wipe them off, before touching their lips 
to the dirty black things. I stayed about the great struc- 
ture until it was time to return to lunch, and then took 
the tram at the end of the right colonnade and came 
almost to the door of my hotel. 

After lunch I took a cab and to test the correctness 
of my recollections I told the f acino to drive me past 

[85 



the Trajan Column to the Forum, then to the Colos- 
seum, then through the Arch of Constantine to the 
Baths of Caracalla, out to the Columbarium and to the 
tomb of Csecilia Metella on the Appian Way, and he 
did, and my directions were just right. I was quite set 
up to think I remembered the order in which they came. 
This occupied all the afternoon. It has been a perfect 
autumn day, bright and warm. The people are all out 
in their Sunday clothes and everyone looking happy and 
contented. I did not intend my drive to be anything 
more than a sort of introductory affair, to be followed 
later by a more careful going over. Nothing has 
changed since we were here excepting at the Baths. 
There they have uncovered large areas of old floor, show- 
ing mosaics of quite interesting patterns, and also the 
lavishness in which they were decorated. They have also 
found a vast number of pieces of old marble casings 
of the walls and fragments of colunms, frescoes, and 
every conceivable thing. In their day I think they must 
have been quite the most scrumptious thing the Romans 
ever looked upon. I don't know, but to-day it seemed 
to me that it was about as tremendous an affair as the 
Colosseum. I was overwhelmed by it. To-morrow I 
shall start in at the Capitol and hereafter go carefully 
over what I visit and take notes for your edification. I 
am looking forward with some dread to the Vatican; 
that always seemed such a formidable affair, endless in 
its collections. I haven't must interest in busts, especi- 
ally when one has no assurance that they are anything 

86] 



but imaginary portraits. I much prefer the *' Wounded 
Gladiator," the *' Venus of Milo," or the work of any of 
the old masters, but when you plow up the head of some- 
one, nobody knows who, nor who did the job, I admit I 
look hurriedly and pass on, he might have been John 
Smith for anything I know. 

To-day the cabman stopped at a gate and I looked 
up and saw a sign over it saying in an unknown tongue 
something about Scipio, and so I went in and found a 
smiling old woman who at once lit some candles and, 
giving me one and taking one herself, started down a 
dark passage rapidly descending into the ground. It 
was of course pitch dark and this narrow passageway, 
just high enough for me to pass through, led along a 
winding way for a long distance until I began to have 
thoughts of what would happen if our lights went out, 
but after quite a walk she stopped and pointed to a 
marble slab with a long Latin inscription on it saying 
something about Scipio Af ricanus ; and then on we went, 
every little ways coming across more slabs and having 
Scipio this and that on them until I thought that there 
must be several generations of Scipios buried here. It 
was a remarkable thing, this making of a very long tun- 
nel underground to deposit this race of Scipios in. We 
finally must have come to the last of the race, for the 
kindly old woman turned and retraced her steps to day- 
light again. I don't know how we happened to skip this 
Scipio place before, but it was all new to me. I also 
went down into a columbarium, a deep cellar with some 

[87 



ten rows of small cells all around the sides in which were 
small jars and caskets, in which the ashes of the departed 
were deposited. It was a damp, ill-smelling place, and 
not nearly so nice as to be put on the mantle-piece in 
the house, the way they do now. 

I had hoped I might find Mr. Forbes here, who took 
us about Rome in '89 and '94, who made old Rome seem 
so very real to us, but I imagine he is dead by this time 
and I shall have to look up someone else. The only way 
to see Rome is to have a good guide who can explain 
things as you go along, although I have an idea that the 
best of them draw on their imagination to make it in- 
teresting. But I imagine that the wildest fancy could 
do the subject but scant justice when you come to 
Csesar's Palaces and Caracalla's Baths, the Colosseum 
and the House of Germanicus, Vestal Virgins, and all 
that sort of thing. Our imaginations are not trained 
along lines of such magnitude. 

I think two weeks of strenuous work here will fill 
my head pretty full of it all, and I shall look forward 
to a week of simple, quiet life in the Villa Narcissus, in 
Capri, with Mr. Coleman, who lives there and where I 
am invited for a week, with great pleasure ; I shall put 
in this week just before leaving for Cairo. I mean to 
spend the intervening weeks at Naples, Pompeii, Amalfi, 
and Sorrento after getting away from Rome. Rome 
has changed greatly since we were here; narrow streets 
widened, fine business blocks erected, tram cars running 
to all interesting points, electric light and steam heat 

88] 



and modern civilization in places of ancient dirt and 
darkness. It may make some who revel in dirt and mys- 
tery sad-eyed, but one can see the things worth seeing 
and at the same time skip a few fleas and not be the 
worse for it. Rome to me is immensely better than it 
was, and all that is worth remembering and seeing is 
here, and you can take it all in and at the same time be 
comfortable. Thank Heaven, it is no longer necessary 
to wear a shirt of nettles nor a crown of thorns to be a 
victim of saving grace. 

Coming from Florence here by way of Siena is 
longer than the direct line but it is by far the more in- 
teresting, as you see two famous old strongholds, in a 
splendid state of preservation, on the way; both stand 
on high hills, but near the track, and are even to-day 
quite formidable. They cover a vast expanse of ground 
and are of solid masonry with heavy buttresses and cas- 
tellated walls. I was very glad to see them, they looked 
as if they might stand there until doomsday. 

Well, good-night. I am keeping in excellent health 
and enjoying my journeyings more even than I ex- 
pected. I hope my letters will reach you punctually 
and manage to give you a little idea of what I am seeing. 



[89 



XX 



Rome, October 20. 

I BEGAN my weeklj'^ letter to you night before last 
and filled one sheet, and then waited to write another to- 
night to go on the evening mail ; but to my discomfiture 
I cannot find the first sheet although I have hunted high 
and low for it, and I conclude that in pulling maps and 
programmes out of my pockets, where I always have a 
lot of miscellaneous papers, I have pulled this out and 
probably somewhere in Rome to-night that document 
is causing excitement from the unknown tongue in which 
it is written. Owing to the loss of this literary effort I 
may not be able to extend this second inning to so great 
an extent as originally planned, but I will do the best I 
can to " occupy the time," as the Baptist brothers say 
when they begin to talk. 

It is a week ago yesterday since I came here, and 
my recollection is that I told you last week of my visit 
to St. Peter's Sunday morning; since then I have been 
on a continual go, visiting the Vatican three times, that 
is, taking the Sistine Chapel and the frescoes of Raphael 
at one time, the Hall of Statues and Marbles in another, 
and yesterday taking in the picture gallery. " The As- 
cension " by Raphael in this room and the vis-d-vis to it, 
the " Martyrdom of St, Jerome " by Domenichino are 
great pictures ; and although it is true that the latter was 
for many years consigned to the rubbish pile and was 
never considered of any value until it was dug out to 

90] 



let the canvas be used for another picture, when the 
artist who was engaged to paint the new picture pro- 
nounced it a masterpiece (showing how slight a thread 
immortality and fame hang on), yet I am very proud 
to think that to me it is the better picture of the two, 
although there are some very lovely things in the former, 
especially the picture of the " Fornarina " in the fore- 
ground. For my part I like Raphael's frescoes better 
than anything he has done. His drawing is freer and 
bolder and his pictures are fuller of life and motion. The 
one where the city is on fire and the people are clam- 
bering down the walls, and one young man is carrying 
out his old father on his back, and the whole city's fire 
department (consisting of two girls carrying water jars 
to put it out) is all instinct with life and color; and the 
School of Athens, with old Diogenes lying naked on the 
steps scoffing at the assembled wise heads, is great, and 
the figures and actions all so natural. When you com- 
pare these with his Madonnas and Annunciations and 
other religious pieces you at once see how the church 
hampered and starved his genius. When you further 
come to look at his portrait painted by himself and so 
frequently seen in his pictures you are again filled with 
wonder that a man of his mild, refined, delicate features 
really had so much in him. 

Michael Angelo, Titian, Da Vinci, and those great 
old fellows had strong, rugged faces, and you read 
power and confidence in every feature; but little Ra- 
phael's was a different type of face and yet he was quite 

[91 



their equal when he undertook frescoes. He was never 
given to stiffness and empiricism, but painted, or at 
least drew, with a free hand, and with a very clear idea 
of gracefulness and consistency; but I am running on 
about art just as if I knew something about it. The 
fact is I am too verdant to open my head about any 
kind of art, but as a great man has said (I forget his 
name) " Them is my sentiments." 

I suppose from the facts just stated you will under- 
stand that in the most of the Vatican collections I took 
greater interest and pleasure in the beautiful vases of 
different marbles, in the graceful tables and exquisite 
bas-reliefs, than I did in the interminably long rows of 
busts that line both sides of those vast aisles. Here and 
there are certain busts that at once appealed to me as 
portraits of certain men who once lived and had a pur- 
pose ; men who made a mark on the generation in which 
they lived, and which is yet an active force in the world. 
These I admire. I love to go back again and again and 
look at them in this white marble, until some way I seem 
to get in touch with them and they become warm and 
sentient once more and you at last leave their great 
presence feeling that you have been with the gods in 
Walhalla, and have made new acquaintances with the 
past that was worth while. 

The poor old body and dismembered legs of the 
Torso of the Belvidere is great. What is there about it 
that draws you to it, that makes you walk around it and 
go back to it? I can't tell. I kept doing this until I 

92] 



thought the guard might come and tell me to be off, but 
it is great. There is more to it than in half the rest of 
the whole museum. That old back and those great old 
thighs; ah, there was a man of might, one who moved 
the world. Then there is the bust of old Seneca, one of 
the most interesting of all busts, his low but strong fore- 
head and thin gnarly old face, a fellow worth knowing, 
I am sure. 

Then one day I went to the Colosseum with an 
Italian professor who told us in very bad English a lot 
about the place, and gave us to understand that much of 
the old-time conjecture about the use of the underground 
passages was found to be incorrect. Then another day 
with Professor Forbes, whom I finally unearthed, who 
took us through the new excavations that have been 
made during the past five years in the corner of 
the Palace of Ceesar, next to the Forum. Forbes is by 
far and away the best guide in Rome, and he made this 
visit full of interest. An entirely new chapel has been 
opened up with frescoes on the walls quite fresh and 
plain, and with mosaic floors and marble columns, and 
baths that were for the private use of the Vestal Virgins ; 
and they also found two busts with inscriptions giving 
the names and dates at which these women held the office 
of Chief Vestal, or as they would now be called Mother 
Superiors. It was bringing the fourth century before 
Christ up-to-date to look at their really fine heads with 
lots of character in their good faces. 

One afternoon I spent at St. John Lateran and to 

[93 



my great pleasure and surprise I found a lovely little 
painting of Guido Reni in one of the little chapels off 
from the Oratory. It is a gem. It was here that the 
guard opened a pair of old bronze doors that were set 
before the days of hinges were known and which swung 
on points set in holes in the stone floor, and when he 
pushed them open by main strength they uttered a com- 
plaining protest by squeaking as they were moved, and 
in this noise made a sort of scale that was truly musical 
as the sound reverberated through the lofty walls of the 
Oratory. It was really quite melodious and should not 
be called squeaking, but a noise that was musical. 

This morning I went to Santa Maria Maggiore ; this 
is wonderfully rich in marbles. There were some colunms 
of oriental alabaster, luminous when a light was held on 
the opposite side. Some very fine lapis lazuli and 
marbles from Constantinople. The entire church and 
chapel were all finished in choicest stones; the ceiling is 
of wood brought from America. After lunch I visited 
the King's palace. It is well carpeted throughout, has 
fine pictures of the King's mother, of Humbert, of 
Victor Emmanuel, and a particularly fine one of the old 
Kaiser Wilhelm. There are a vast number of rooms and 
everything was in apple-pie order, as the King had en- 
tertained the King of Siam in the morning and there had 
been a conferring of orders during the time. I saw two 
of the royal equipages coming back after conveying the 
King to the station, six horses with splendid gold- 
trimmed harness and with riders on the near horse and 

94] 



three lackeys riding, standing up in the rumble behind, 
a very splendid turnout, and bodyguards on horse- 
back, and at the same time saw beggars in aU kinds 
of rags running along begging of the passers-by. And 
speaking of beggars, Rome seems to be overrun with 
them, and, what is worse, the persistent sellers of post 
cards and mosaic jewelry. I can't see how they can 
make even the most meagre living, for they offer you 50 
cards for 20c, but how they do annoy one. It does no 
good to say " Bastia " (get out) ; they don't get out but 
hang on fiercer than ever and follow and annoy you be- 
yond description. The Government ought to intervene 
and stop it. 

After going rapidly through the palace (the guard 
keeps you on the trot so that twenty minutes passes you 
through and out) I drove out to the Janiculum Hill, 
where they have erected the magnificent mounted statue 
of Garibaldi, where he overlooks the entire city, and 
from where you can pick out all the principal points of 
interest. From here I drove down and out to the Pin- 
cian Gardens, and here was all Rome, walking and driv- 
ing, while the military band was playing ; and then over 
through the Borghese Park and to the hotel to write 
this letter to tell you how much I love you all and how 
dear you and home are, so good-night. 



[95 



XXI 

Rome, October 26. 

It is Saturday afternoon and I have just returned 
from the last of my sightseeing in this place, viz., the 
Borghese Gallery, which is outside the walls and on the 
Pincian Hill. This week the weather has interfered 
much with satisfactory work as it has rained nearly 
every day and the Hght has been very bad to see pictures 
in the churches; but I had a lovely day at Tivoli and 
Hadrian's Villa Wednesday. Quite a large party of us 
went out with Professor Forbes. The trip was fuller of 
interest than in '89, because now the Villa d' Este is 
open to visitors, a thing not allowed before. It is a 
beautiful place although allowed to run uncared for by 
the present lessee, who rents it merely to get control of 
the water to use in his paper factory. There are in- 
numerable fountains in the grounds and he has them 
all running, and at the end gathers them to- 
gether and makes the water turn his turbines. "To 
what base uses may we come." The buildings are of 
the sixteenth century. At one time Prince Hohenlohe, 
Prime Minister of Bavaria, lived here, and that was in- 
teresting to me, as last winter I read his memoirs. 

Tivoli has become a great manufacturing point. The 
waterfalls have been harnessed up and besides moving 
large paper mills they are used, or a part of them, to 
generate the electricity to light Rome and run her street 
cars, and yet, strange as it may seem, they have done 

96] 



all this without detracting in any way from the beauty of 
the falls as they were before making them useful. 

Hadrian's Villa, although I remembered it well, 
seemed more interesting and charming than it did on my 
first visit. A good deal of additional excavation has 
been made within the last twelve years, and a great many 
new treasures discovered. It must have been the most 
wonderful collection of the most artistic objects that 
were ever got together, and all in the richest surround- 
ings conceivable by man. The place is full of pieces of 
marble of all kinds, busts, torsos, capitals, friezes, bas- 
reliefs, columns, tables, fountains, etc., etc., without end, 
showing that it was adorned as no one can imagine now. 
It is worth a trip to Europe to see this place if nothing 
else, and yet Forbes told me that it is wonderful how 
many people there are who come to Rome and spend 
weeks and never see this Villa. He says they say, " Oh! 
we have seen ruins until we are tired, we don't want to 
see any more." I got Dr. Frank and his wife to go out 
with me and they were simply overwhelmed by the won- 
ders of the place. The ruins have been mostly caused 
by an earthquake, so that Forbes has been able to study 
the thing out and knows what every room was for ; and 
as he goes along and explains it all it is like going 
through a palace where everything is plainly to be 
understood. 

To-day I have been in the National Museum, estab- 
lished by the Government in the cloisters and buildings 
formerly a part of the Baths of Diocletian. Here they 

[97 



are now placing all the treasures found in the new ex- 
cavations, which, at last, are being carried on systemati- 
cally and steadily, having learned that they may make 
it pay a good interest on the capital expended by draw- 
ing visitors to Rome to see the attractions, as they charge 
one lira admittance per person, and this counts up to a 
snug sum during the year. The financial condition of 
Italy is growing better daily and shows that their Min- 
ister of Finance is wide awake and gathering in the 
ducats. Exchange is par. I spent one day in the 
Vatican again. It is tremendously full of rich things. 
The rooms are in themselves very bright in frescoes and 
gilt. The numerous presents sent to the late Pope by 
his friends, sovereigns of other countries, are all exhib- 
ited in one vast hall, and consist of splendid great vases 
from Sevres, Berlin, and Meissen, rich marbles and mal- 
achite, onjrx, lapis lazuli, and alabaster wrought into 
columns, tables, urns, and I don't know what, and placed 
in rows and on the sides through and about the vast hall. 
Then there are articles in gold and silver cunningly 
wrought and artistically designed; books elaborately il- 
lustrated by hand and bound regardless of expense. 
Millions are represented in this collection. It is wonder- 
ful how money was outpoured by the world, and now 
they are trying to raise money enough to buy a strip of 
land from the Vatican to Ostia, about thirty miles, to 
deed to the Pope so that he may go to sea without step- 
ping on any ground but his own. There is no doubt but 
that the money will be forthcoming, and then the next 

98] 



thing will be to build him a railway over it and a yacht 
to sail away in. But what folly ; you go about Italy and 
it fairly swarms with beggars, there are said to be 20,000 
in Florence alone; and you can't go ten rods without 
being accosted by them ; and they move your sympathies, 
for they are mostly maimed in some way, and the chil- 
dren look as if they were starving to death ; and yet here 
are the palaces of the King scattered about over the 
country, the Pope lives in the utmost grandeur with 100 
soldiers in gorgeous uniform and a perfect army of 
other richly attired persons all about. They spend thou- 
sands of dollars in putting mosaics in the ceilings of the 
churches so far up in the air that one can scarcely see 
them ; there is an army of good, sleek, fat monks loung- 
ing around every church, that ought to be earning their 
own living; and there you are. Labor is very cheap, 
a first-class mason gets $1.00 per day when he can find 
work. You can get a good cab that will carry three for 
20 cents for any distance inside the city, or 50 cents for 
an hour. You give the man that does you a favor 2 cents 
and he thanks you humbly. I bought a very nice 
medium-weight overcoat this week, as good as my New 
York tailor would ask me $75.00 for, and I was only 
taxed $30 for it. You can get very good board and a 
very good room for $1.60 per day. You can ride any- 
where in the city on a tram for 2 cents and many dis- 
tances for 1^ cents, and if you give the conductor a 
penny he treats you as if you were a Prince Imperial. 
I go to Naples Monday and Dr. Frank and wife are 

[99 



going along, and we shall have the drive from Pompeii 
to La Cava, Sorrento, and Amalfi together, and on my 
return from that I am going to Capri to be at the Villa 
Narcissus for a week. Think of the good time I will 
have. 

The weeks slip away faster than this paper does, but 
my love for you never fails. I have had lovely letters 
from you all during the week. Am glad that you are all 
well and prosperous. 



100] 



XXII 

Geand Hotel 
Naples, Sunday Evening, November 3. 

Last Monday I came from Rome here; I was glad 
to get away from there, as the Hotel M was any- 
thing but satisfactory. The rooms were good and large, 
but the beds were hard and of the most absurd shape — 
the centre was high and it sloped in every direction from 
that point so one had to lie about half awake to keep 
from slipping off sideways, and have his head bolstered 
up to keep the blood from all settling in it — but worse 
than all was the coffee ; it was horrible, black and bitter 
as gaU. It was a fine house when the old lady was alive, 
but she died last year and left the concern to her daugh- 
ter. She thinks she knows it all, but what she does know 
is to quarrel with her servants and be disagreeable to 
her guests. Well, enough of this. Here in good Mr. 
Houser's Hotel I have excellent coffee, — the best by far 
in Europe, — good beds, and all the little things one has 
at home that go to make up his comforts. The first 
three days of this week were unsettled, rain and shine, 
and since these we have had Naples weather. 

I have spent a half of two days at the museum, which 
has been greatly improved since my last visit, and 
largely enriched from the later excavations at Pompeii. 
It is a huge affair and it takes a great deal of time and a 
deal of patience if one wishes to become familiar \vith 
it. It is intensely interesting; it was particularly so 

[101 



this time, for Dr. Frank was with me, he had never 
seen it before and was amazed when he found that so 
many surgical instruments that are used to-day are 
ahnost exactly like the ones here on the shelves where 
the Pompeian things are exhibited. Not common in- 
struments, but the elaborate ones, such as are now used 
to put down the throat to examine your tonsils, to en- 
large the openings in the ear and nose ; the mirror to put 
in the mouth, such as dentists use now; all sorts of dental 
instruments, surgeons' knives and saws, and I don't 
know what all. The doctor says he is going to order a 
complete copy of all of them and have a nice case made 
and present them to the Medical Association of Wis- 
consin. That is a good scheme, it seems to me. 

I went one day up to the old monastery of San Mar- 
tino, no longer a monastery, as the Government has sup- 
pressed it since 1898 and turned it into a museum. The 
Chapel is wonderfully rich in marbles and mosaics, and 
wood carvings, and, indeed, all of its treasures are 
well cared for ; but you can only get a cheap imitation of 
the fine liquors that once made the place famous. It is 
the only place that I know of where one can see any 
genuine Capodimontes. They pretend to show it to you 
at the Palace Capodimonte where I went this morning, 
but I saw at once that it was not and on the other hand 
was partly Vienna and partly Meissen ware, although I 
gave this guide, who was a stupid fellow, a franc to tell 
me lies of this sort. 

Yesterday I spent at Pompeii. It was good to be 

102] 



there again. They have done a lot of work in the past 
fourteen years and have opened up the most interesting 
building of the entire place, of course excepting the pub- 
lic places such as the arena, forum, bourse, etc. This 
new find is called the House of the Vettii — pronounced 
Vet-te-e. It was without question a very high-toned 
gambling and sporting house. It is very extensive, with 
a large garden, surrounded by a lovely peristyle, or 
covered walk; elegant vases, tables, urns, statues, and 
fountains are in this garden and along the sides. The 
rooms are numerous and the walls of all of them cov- 
ered with exquisite frescoes. The base of color is the 
most beautiful red I ever saw. One can here get a 
correct idea of what " Pompeian red " was, and is. I 
cannot describe it, for it is not offensive like most reds 
but has a soft richness that is most pleasing to the eye. 
On this red base are painted all sorts of things; the 
legends of history dating back ages ; Leda and the swan, 
the Rape of the Sabines, Narcissus, and all the rest of 
them, lovely, graceful and beautiful forms and faces, 
exquisite flowers, and all sorts of architectural figures. 
The walls are a study for anyone who wishes to see at 
what stage art was when the Christian era began. It is 
simply amazing, and when you look at this branch of 
art, together with the sculpture and work in stone and 
the mosaics on wall and mantel, you are almost willing 
to say art has made no advancement in all the centuries 
since the fateful night that buried Pompeii. In this 
house above all the others the frescoes are the best pre- 

[103 



served, why I don't know, unless it is because the house 
was better built, and thus the ashes were kept out to a 
greater degree than generally was the case. There are 
many of the frescoes that seem not to have suffered in 
the least and are as fresh as when they were first put on 
the walls. There are two rooms that ladies are not 
allowed to see that by their decorations proclaim the 
character of the house. These show that Pompeii was 
ready for the judgment that fell upon it. It was a 
Sodom and Gomorrah and no mistake, and it was at the 
entrance of one of these private rooms that a funny 
thing happened yesterday. Of course there were many 
parties going about under guides, and one party con- 
sisted of a typical Englishman and his spouse; she was 
one of the sort I have mentioned before and by me desig- 
nated " an old cat." Well, as is the custom in Pompeii 
when a mixed party arrives in the neighborhood of one 
of these " Closed to ladies " places, the regular guide 
makes some excuse and leads the ladies off to see some 
quite extraordinary view while the men are turned over 
to the special guide for the private apartments. Well, 
when the English couple reached this point the guide 
called the old lady's attention to something and the old 
gent slipped away, but he had been gone only an instant 
when he was missed and the " cat " caught sight of him 
as he entered the private door, and what does she do but 
turn from her guide and rush frantically down to the 
door and try to open it, and not getting in set at it with 
both fists and pounded away on the door yelling out, 

104] 



" Come out of there! Come out, I tell you! " There 
were a good many people about and they pretty gen- 
erally laughed. I was sorry not to stay and see the game 
out, but I had to hurry along. I take it the old gent got 
quite a "cat hauling " when they met. 

I saw again the marble table from which our dining 
table is modelled; it is in the house of "Cornelius 
Rufus," and I don't wish to forget this, as it will be, I 
trust, handed down through many generations of our 
family. It is a work of art. 

I go to-morrow morning by steamer to Capri, arid 
now expect to remain there for a week, November the 
11th; then I shall go to Amalfi; and Sorrento and Cas- 
tellammare for the rest of the time until November 28, 
when I sail from here to Alexandria, reaching Cairo 
December 2, and I shall be in Cairo until December 10, 
then go up the Nile and be up there for a month. Letters 
written after this reaches you could be sent care of Thos. 
Cook & Sons, Cairo, Egypt, that would reach there any 
time before January 10, counting about fifteen days 
from home to Cairo. I haven't decided what I shall do 
on leaving Egypt, but I think I will go from Alexan- 
dria to Greece and then to Gibraltar and up through 
Spain to Paris, Dresden, and Berlin, and home via 
Bremen. That you may not be misled by writing to 
me via Cairo let me say that letters written between 
November 20 and January 1 could be sent there, after 
that through Baring Bros, unless otherwise directed. 

I am getting enough of Italy. The beggars, the 

[105 



utter disregard of law, the poverty and dirt, are all re- 
volting. I never want to see any more of it after this 
trip. I have just had a surprise in meeting a young 
Mr. H., who says he was a schoolmate of John's. He 
says he has been here four years and will probably 
remain here, having married a native of this city. It 
seems rather strange; probably John and Kathleen 
know about liim. He seems like a nice fellow, said he 
had no business. 

I am keeping very well, don't gain or lose in flesh as 
I can see. I think more and more of home and how it 
will be to get back again, and see you all and live like a 
white man in place of a globe-trotter. If it wasn't that 
I must see the Assuan Dam and the Cairo museum I 
should be greatly tempted to go home this fall, and yet 
the terrors of a Milwaukee winter and spring would 
keep me from there at any rate. I hope the panic in 
New York has not seriously impaired any of our friends. 
I shall look for better times soon now, as people find out 
how badly they were scared over a very small " Boo." 



106] 




C. C. COLEMAN IN VILLA NARCISSUS, ISOLA DI CAPRI 



XXIII 

IsoLA Di Capri 
Villa Narcissus, November 11. 

Last Monday I came from Naples over here to 
spend a week with Mr. Charles C. Coleman, the artist 
and friend of Mr. P. (who is joint owner of the villa 
with Mr. Coleman), who before I left New York in- 
sisted on my promising him to do so. You can imagine 
I was not reluctant, as I was glad of the opportunity to 
not only make the acquaintance of so well known an 
artist, but to see how such people live over here. 

The history of the villa is that it was an old home, 
probably 200 years ago. Coleman came down here from 
Rome many years since, was so taken with the loveliness 
of the place that he bought it,. and then as Mrs. P. was 
at that time sojourning on the island she induced her 
husband to join in with Coleman and have it overhauled, 
added unto, and improved so that when any of them 
wished to come over they could have a home here. Cole- 
man has great taste in the line of picturesque effects and 
he made this one of the most interesting and attractive 
places. It is situated near the top of the low part of 
the backbone of the ridge that runs from one end to the 
other of the island, and you can see the ocean on both 
sides of the same, from the different windows of the villa. 
The house has the quaintest recesses, halls, rooms of all 
dimensions, pretty loggias, peristyles, gardens, stair- 
ways, etc., with large bedrooms and bathrooms, courts, 

[lor 



and I don't know what. I g'et lost every time I go up 
to my room, there are so many little passages and doors 
leading everywhere. The house is a perfect museum and 
picture gallery and packed with the quaintest and most 
interesting things that C. has collected, and had given to 
him. 

But I must try to tell you something of this lovely 
island. You know of course that Tiberius once lived 
here; the ruins of his old castle we visited yesterday and 
there is enough left for one to get an idea of the extent 
and richness of the home of this old despot. It is on one 
of the three highest points and overlooks the sea in every 
direction for a great distance. It stands over 1000 feet 
above the water and on one side there is a sheer descent 
to the sea. It was a strategic point and no enemy could 
approach from any direction without being seen long be- 
fore he could land, giving abundance of time to pre- 
pare the boiling oil and water and enlarge the pile of 
rocks to heave down when the rascals began to climb the 
one side approachable by land. He had a theatre, baths, 
a place for wild animals, and all the accessories that auto- 
crats of lives and property were accustomed to surround 
themselves with at that time, and yet he wasn't happy. 
There is a steep path leading from the village up to the 
old place and now some monk has built a little chapel 
up there out of a portion of the material in the ruins, 
and some benevolent man has made him a present of a 
bronze Virgin covered with gold-leaf that he has put on 
a masonry base or pedestal. The figure is some 20 feet 

108] 



high, and when the sun shines you can see it for many- 
miles as you approach the island from the sea. From 
this you descend, pass through the village, and go up 
another wonderful road hewn out of solid rock and 
clinging to the almost perpendicular face, turn the 
corner or end of the island and come upon " Anacapri " 
or a higher Capri, a smaller village, but having an inde- 
pendent corporation, with many pretty villas and two 
charming hotels. In looking up from this villa, which 
is over 1000 feet above the sea, you can see the ruins of 
another old stronghold built by an ancient robber chief 
who used to charge about the country collecting dues 
from all hereabouts, and semi-occasionally hanging a 
negligent brother who had forgotten that something ex- 
cepting grins was due his lord on top of the mountain. 
It is called the Barbarossa Castle from the fact that it 
was destroyed by a pirate of this name who finally got 
the under hold on this nameless ruffian and sent him all 
unshriven to the place that he had contributed neighbors 
to for some past years. I can imagine how greatly 
tickled some of the hithei-to afflicted brethren must have 
felt as they saw this lordly ruffian dangling by the heels 
from Barbarossa's yardarm. 

On still another high point — there are three of them 
— stand the ruins of a medieval castle. I cannot learn 
much about this, but it must have a history somewhere. 
A noble English lady bought this with the intention of 
fixing it up and making a home, but I imagine found it 
was too big a job to climb up there, at any rate nothing 
has been done. 

[109 



The whole island on both sides is covered with 
pretty villas, and the town proper is as quaint as any- 
thing I have seen. One of the streets leading from this 
villa goes for a long way through a tunnel with shops on 
either side. There are a good many notable people here. 
EJihu Vedder has a fascinating place and he is now 
writing his autobiography here, and Coleman has seen 
some of the advance sheets and says it will be one of 
the most interesting books of the generation. Vedder 
himself is a very interesting character. I spent an after- 
noon at his home and he is a most entertaining talker and 
has had a very interesting career. They, Vedder and 
wife, have an only daughter, a girl of about twenty, who 
is very talented. She paints pictures with wonderful 
skill, works in wood and metal, making all kinds of 
things, designs and makes wonderfully constructed gar- 
ments. C. has a library robe that she designed and made 
with her own hands that is a marvel of grace, embroid- 
ery, and color. There are fifteen other artists on the 
island; Speed, Sir Frederick Leighton, Richardson, 
Peter Graham, and I can't remember w ho all, have either 
studios here or rent them and come here and paint. The 
location, the views, the tout ensemble is such that it at 
once appeals to the artist. Fred. Krupp, the steel prince 
of Germany, purchased a place here and spent thou- 
sands of pounds in building roads down the mountains, 
and was just on the point of building a magnificent villa 
when he died. There are several American and many 
English families who live here, and the society is very fine 

110] 



> 
o 

a Ki 
(t <; 

1= - 

<1 En 

a > 
O 

o 

> 




and of an interesting character. Coleman is a bachelor, 
62 years old, unshaven and unshorn, with a fine massive 
head and a most pleasant and agreeable gentleman. He 
has an Italian man and wife, cook and butler, and lives 
hke a prince; the best of everything and a most genial 
host. This morning I went to his studio and was amazed 
at his work. He had a great many pictures, few finished, 
but many studies and preparatory sketches that were 
fine. He had an exhibition of his pictures at Rhein- 
hart's in Milwaukee, he tells me, some six or seven years 
ago, probably Kathleen may remember it. Two of his 
pictures nearly finished were so really good that I 
bought them and they are to be sent to Milwaukee next 
spring. He has one large picture — Christ walking on 
the water — that strikes me as one of the great pictures 
of this generation or of any other, and he has another 
which is only outlined, as you might say, that will be 
equally great if it is finished up as it promises. It is a 
view taken from back of Capri, showing the village, 
while the background is Vesuvius at the time of the 
great eruption last April. 

Yesterday Mr. Coleman arranged for a fete in honor 
of our party. We took a row-boat with four stalwart 
oarsmen and rowed nearly around the island, and then 
landed at the ruins of the Tiberius Baths that are not 
far from the entrance to the Blue Grotto. We climbed 
the debris of the ancient steps to the top of the table- 
land some fifty feet above the sea and came upon a 

vacant villa, the property of a London artist, who was 

[111 



absent but who had given Mr. Coleman the right of 
occupation. It was a charming, extensive place with a 
broad veranda covered with vines, and here we found a 
party already assembled to greet and welcome us seafar- 
ing mortals: Vedder with his daughter, Peter Graham, 
the venerable and lovely old man and veteran artist, 
Mrs. S. of New York, — a permanent resident now of the 
island, — ^Don Allesandro, the j oiliest and most genial of 
priests. Miles. E. and D. of Ziirich, and two or three 
others whose names I cannot remember. Tables were 
already spread and covered with drinkables and eatables 
of the most appetizing appearance and we had a jolly 
afternoon. The day was lovely and the whole affair was 
a perfect success. 

I had intended leaving here next Monday, but C. 
won't hear of it and so I have decided to remain until 
Wednesday next. It is good to be where I can have a 
nice home breakfast, good coffee, nice fruit, a charming 
roomwherelcan look out on the blue Mediterranean with 
Naples in full view, Ischia on the left, and Vesuvius, 
and the villages at its foot, all in the picture. Nowhere 
else on earth is there a lovelier spot than Isola di Capri, 
and no man who appreciates it more than I. I have had 
one sad experience, as I had a cable from Pasadena an- 
nouncing the death of my very dear friend Mr. Tod 
Ford. Poor fellow, it was a glorious relief to him, but 
to all his friends a terrible loss. I have had lovely letters 
from you all this week. I am well and the weather is 
fine. 

112] 




THE PICNIC, ISOLA DI CAPIU 
Peter Graham, Artist, and Mademoiselle Dora 



XXIV 

Grand Hotel 
Naples, November 22. 

After ten days at Capri, four days at Sorrento, and 
three days at Almafi I returned here yesterday. I had 
expected to stay a Httle longer at Sorrento and Amalfi, 
but the weather turned pretty cold and the hotels in 
neither place had any heat in sight and I looked back 
with longing to this good comfortable place with its 
steam radiators and general air of comfort. It has been 
particularly interesting here to-day as the big North 
German Lloyd liner sailed this evening and the clans 
have been gathering here preparatory to starting for 
New York. Mr. Reus and his wife were among the 
number, and I went down to the ship and bade them 
" bon voyage" I hope they will have a safe trip, but 
as for a good one, the Atlantic is not in the habit of being 
very peaceful at this time of the year; I am glad that I 
am going to sunny Egypt instead. I shall put in a 
couple of days at Pompeii, and the balance of the re- 
maining days in the museum here and in looking 
through the interesting shops. Naples is always fasci- 
nating, the streets are always crowded and with the 
most varicolored crowd you can find anywhere, unless 
Cairo perhaps be excepted. 

They do everything in the open here. You can see 
the cows and goats being driven through the streets and 
halted before the door while the cups and pitchers are 

[113 



filled before your eyes. They do their washing, saw 
their wood, shoe the horses, make shoes, mend clothes, 
comb the children's heads, eat, drink, and sleep any- 
where. All the performances of life occupy the public 
streets and sidewalks and the passers-by have no rights, 
you simply go out into the street if you wish to go along, 
they never dream of getting out of the way. The wash- 
ing is all hung out of the windows; generally a line is 
strung across the street to one's neighbor's window op- 
posite and from the four successive stories, one above 
another. Dwellers in the stories above the street have 
little baskets with a rope attached and they let this down 
to the passing tradesman and he fills the order and the 
basket is hoisted up and requisite change is lowered down 
in the same way and the transaction is closed. The way- 
farer must look sharp or he is apt to feel a basket or some 
other vehicle of convej'^ance banging on his head. The 
streets are crowded all day so that one gets on but slowly 
if he walks. If you are not a native and to the manner 
born you are at once singled out by the cab drivers, 
flower men and girls, and the beggars, and there is no 
peace until you get inside some door or shop. 

The cab drivers are the worst; they will drive right 
in front of you if you are crossing a street or a park 
and annoy you beyond description until you either get 
into the cab or take another, and in this case the first 
man, who has been making life miserable for you, will 
upbraid and curse you and all your kith and kin as long 
as you are within hailing distance. I make it a rule 

114] 



I 



never to patronize the men that bother me and prefer to 
listen to their profanity and laugh at their discomfiture. 
I am glad I can't understand their vituperations, for I 
might feel my pride hurt if I heard their opinion of me. 
The flower men and the postal card fiends are next in the 
nuisance line. It is a wonder that the police will not in- 
terfere and stop it all, but not a thing is done. If you 
don't hke the way they do things in Naples don't come 
here, that is all there is to it. It is late and I wiU leave 
this for the finish to-morrow, and Sunday. 

I expected that after the ship left last evening there 
would be a noticeable falling off at the table dfhote^ but 
this noon at lunch there were many new faces and a 
larger crowd than last night. There are funny people 
cavorting about the world. There is a very dressy, 
showy w^oman here with a young son, about fifteen years 
old, that does a lot of talking. Last evening he was 
telling a young woman that this was his sixth trip over 
here and that he was going up to Rome to go to school 
this winter. He said they always lived at the Waldorf- 
Astoria, that they had a home in The Palms, in Florida, 
and that he liked travelling around but that it was get- 
ting to be a deadly bore, don't you know. Another 
youngish German who is here with his mother, a very 
red-faced old dowager, enlightened us by saying in a 
loud voice at the dinner table when the pudding was 
passed around, " No, I don't want any of your pudding, 
cheese and butter are the only things fit to eat for des- 
sert." A woman who looks like a Yankee schoolma'm, 

rii5 



was talking to a German gentleman who had told her 
that he was going to Cairo and up the Nile ; she said that 
Egypt was just the loveliest place in all the world in 
winter and the trip up the Nile the finest thing to do, 
etc., etc., and finally, when the German got a chance in, 
he asked her how many times she had been up the Nile, 
she confessed that she had never been at all but had 
spent two weeks in Cairo years ago. The German gent 
upon this lapsed into silence. Many of the German and 
English women smoke cigarettes after dinner in the 
lobby, and to-day after dinner I saw a family of father, 
mother, son, and daughter all smoking cigarettes. 

Yesterday I spent two hours in the museum look- 
ing again at the frescoes found on the walls of Pompeii. 
They are wonderfully fresh and some of them remark- 
ably well drawn. I cannot imagine what colors they 
could have used that should have resisted all the acci- 
dents of time, the burial under ashes for all those cen- 
turies, and the subsequent exposure since being uncov- 
ered, and yet retain their original freshness and beauty. 
We know of no color that will pass through such an 
ordeal now. These frescoes have great fascination for 
me and I shall visit them at least twice again. I am 
also going to have a full day at Pompeii as soon as this 
storm is over. 

I cannot help sympathizing with the poor people that 
left for New York last night, for there must be rough 
water on the sea to-day. The sirocco is a gale to-day 
and the sea is breaking over the walls below the hotel. 

116] 



Sunday Morning, November 24. 

It is still cold but the rain is over and I am going to 
the museum again. I have just found a book here by 
Grant, an Englishman, called " Tales of the Camorra." 
I want you to get it and read it. It is immensely in- 
teresting. You may not know of the Camorra, but it is 
a secret society that exists in the south of Italy with 
Naples as headquarters. This body has grown in num- 
bers and strength until it has become a menace to law 
and society. The Government undertook to put it down 
a short time ago and to its amazement found that it had 
members in the highest grade of society, even persons of 
the royal blood being in it. Their avowed aim is anarchy 
and disregard of all law. They do not hesitate in the 
least to commit murder and put out of the way any ob- 
noxious persons. Many terrible things are charged to 
them, and frequent disappearances of public persons are 
laid to them. I understand that the Government got 
such information that it put a stop to further investiga- 
tion. They control things here in Naples to such an 
extent that no one doing business here can ignore them. 

To give you an instance, I was in the English phar- 
macy the other day and knowing the head man there, 
an Englishman, pretty well, asked him to give me the 
address of a good hatter; he wrote it down on a paper 
for me, and I said: " I will call a cab and show him the 
card and he can drive me there." 

He spoke up quickly and said: " Don't do that, for 
if you drive up there in a cab they will charge you 10 
per cent, more than if you walk." 

[117 



I said: " How is that? " and he said: " Don't you 
know about the Camorra? " and I said, " No, what 
about it?" 

" Why," says he, " there is a rule here in Naples 
made by the Camorra that every cabman that brings 
a customer to any shop gets 10 per cent, on all pur- 
chases his fare makes." " Well," I said, " I wouldn't 
pay it if I was the merchant." 

" Yes, you would," said the druggist, " or you would 
go out of business if you weren't killed within a month." 
Then he went on and told me how they held up every- 
one; and he added, " Don't you get into any dispute with 
your cabman, have an understanding as to price before 
you take a cab or you mil have serious trouble, and don't 
appeal to a policeman, they are all in it. We are living 
on the crater of a live volcano and no one knows when 
the end will come." 

So I am glad that I am so soon to leave Naples. 



118] 



XXV 

Caieo, Egypt, December 3. 

Leaving Naples last Friday at 3:30 p.m. after a 
perfectly calm and peaceful passage we reached Alex- 
andria yesterday at 9 a.m. It took several hours to get 
through the customs ; the examination is absolutely noth- 
ing, but they have to see every piece and chalk it, and 
you cannot rush the Government any; and it was noon 
before we left Alexandria. Then we should have 
reached here at 3 p.m., but a bridge was washed out 
somewhere on the way and we had to take a round-about 
line and did not get here until after five, and I was too 
lazy to begin any letters last night. 

We had many interesting people on board our ship ; 
the Duke of Aosta, cousin of the present King of Italy, 
and his wife, sister of the Queen of Portugal, a very 
tall, slim, delicate-looking woman who dressed and be- 
haved very politely and with dignity ; she looks miserable 
and has a very bad cough, and I think is visiting Egypt 
as a last resort. She is not exactly pretty, but has an 
air of refinement that makes her interesting. I should 
think she was about thirty-five years old. Her husband 
was apparently of suitable age and was very nice to her. 
They took all their meals in the public dining saloon, 
having a separate table only. About twenty minutes be- 
fore we sailed the police cleared the dock of the loafers, 
and then she and her husband with two nice-looking 
little boys, a maid, and two military officers of high 

[119 



rank, with two or three friends, and two men whom I 
took to be detectives, drove up and all came on board 
while all the ship's officers stood at attention. The royal 
party came at once to the upper deck and, just before 
the ship sailed, the military gentlemen brought the little 
boys up to their mother to say goodbye. They took off 
their caps and kissed her and then they went ashore and 
stood each by his military attendant until the ship left. 
The mother controlled herself with remarkable firmness, 
and as I stood and watched her bid them goodbye I could 
not help believe that she thought it was probably the last 
time that she should ever see them ; it was a very pathetic 
picture. The boys have inherited their mother's delicate 
constitution, they were very puny and white ; lovely little 
fellows, but so undemonstrative. Then there was an- 
other couple, a Prince and Princess of Austria, quite 
young people that were inseparable. She was a very 
pretty, healthy, and good-natured girl, but I was sorry 
when I saw her smoking cigarettes. Her husband was 
a big overgrown boy who was never happy unless he had 
his hands on her. They used to walk the deck with his 
arm around her neck. 

Then there was a Russian Prince and his wife ; they 
were both very good-looking and kept to themselves. 
Then there was an English woman who had rank, and 
she was married to a military officer who had money. I 
think she was a Duchess or possibly only a Countess, 
and she was the most obnoxious woman I have seen in a 
long time. She had an idea that she was the only per- 

120] 



son in the world who had any business here ; she snubbed 
everybody that came near her, and the passengers all 
disliked her. I had a good chance to return some of her 
impudence when we reached Cairo last evening. I was 
handing my grip and shawlstrap out of the car window 
to a native servant that I had beckoned to and she came 
up on the outside of the train and caught hold of my 
man's arm and said, " Here, I want you." 

He said, " I am engaged, Madam." 

She said, " I don't care, I want you to get out my 
baggage." 

At this I interrupted and said, " Pardon, madame, 
this is my man, I have him engaged, what do you want? " 

She said, " I want that bag on the rack." 

This was in my compartment. She had evidently 
been first in my compartment before leaving Alexan- 
dria and changed to another but left some of her belong- 
ings in the section. I said, " Shall I hand it out to you? " 

"Yes," she said, " pass it out! " in a peremptory way. 
No thanks, not a civil word. I looked at her and I said 
with great deliberation, '* Well, if that is the way you 
feel, kindly get the bag out as you please ; neither I nor 
my man will help," and turned and went out. I don't 
know how she got along, the incident closed with me. 

Mr. Coleman came over from Capri Friday morning 
and brought me a basket of delicious Sorrento oranges ; 
he stayed on board and took lunch with me, and only 
left just before the ship sailed. 

To-day I spent the morning in the bazaars ; they are 

[121 



immensely entertaining and interesting. Things are so 
cheap, one is tempted to spend all his money, but I 
looked and walked away. 

This afternoon I took a cab and a guide and went 
through the busy streets out to the Citadel, visited two 
of the most important mosques, then drove about the best 
streets; and to-morrow, shall start in with the museum. 
That is a big job but it will be very interesting, as they 
have added so much to it since '93. I have a great desire 
to see what they unearthed in the great temple of Deir 
el Bahri, built by the daughter of Thotmes I, that they 
were just beginning on when I was last here in Egypt. 

Cairo seems to have changed very much; there are 
many more fine business blocks, the JVIuski has been 
widened, and new buildings of modern design put up 
for a square or more at the end near the Ezbekiyeh Gar- 
dens; but the streets are no cleaner. It is a wonderful 
sight as you wander down through the old bazaars to see 
the immense number of people of every description and 
nationality crowding along, every variety of dress, don- 
keys, camels, carts, carriages, veiled women, men in 
frocks, everyone talking and shouting, a perfect babel 
of sound; three fights with attendant crowds, two fu- 
neral processions, two weddings, the scholars coming 
from the University, the fashionable and the f ellahin all 
mixed up together. There can be no other place in the 
world like it. The population is denser, it seems, than 
in any place I have ever been. 

I received no mail here and was greatly disappointed, 

122] 



as I had counted on finding quite a lot. I suppose now 
I shall get nothing until Thursday when the Marseilles 
boat comes, but I cannot hold this up and will acknowl- 
edge any letters that I get in my next. 

There are a good many Americans in town, judging 
from the conversation I hear about me, but I have met 
no one that I knew excepting a gentleman from Boston 
who was on our ship and was with a party going around 
the world. I hope this will find you all well. Ah, if 
you could only have Egyptian winter weather in Amer- 
ica, wouldn't it be heaven on earth? 



[123 



XXVI 

Cairo, December 8. 

This has been a most delightful week. The weather 
every day the same, cool in the morning, growing gradu- 
ally warmer at noon, and by five o'clock in the after- 
noon a light wrap comfortable if you are riding or sit- 
ting out in the open. But it is such a delightful, certain 
sort of a climate, you know positively that it won't rain 
again before next fall, and the difference of a few de- 
grees more or less doesn't matter where the air is so dry 
and bracing, and that is where this country lays way over 
California. Here you may plan each day's work or play 
for months ahead, and you may be sure, so far as climate 
goes, nothing will interfere. 

I have been following my Baedeker suggestions as 
to the different days' sightseeing and found them good. 
The first day, Tuesday, I wandered down into the Muski, 
the busiest business street in the city, where for a mile 
or more it was thronged with the people of every nation 
on earth, together with camels bearing ponderous loads 
going along with their ugly under-lip protruding and 
their rocking gait, looking neither to the right nor left, 
and every now and then grunting their disapproval of 
the noisy, moving crowd. Mites of donkeys, here hitched 
into an ungainly cart which is several times heavier than 
required, and on which every known thing is hauled 
through the streets ; and every now and then you see one 
loaded down with women, covered with black mantles 

124] 



and with a black veil hanging from just below the eyes 
down to the waist, with an Arab walking near the don- 
key's head— and here, you say, is a countryman bring- 
ing his harem either to shop, visit, or probably for the 
more likely reason that if he carts his women around 
with him he knows where they are, which in many cases 
might be a question, judging from their frequent at- 
tempts at flirtation with the passers-by even from the 
cart on which their lord and master is conveying them. 
They have a very fascinating way of giving their veil 
a little push and revealing their charms, which, with their 
bright eyes, is rather fetching. The progress through 
the Muski is slow. The crowds fill the streets, and the 
sidewalks are only a foot or two at most in width. Nearly 
all the men wear the red fez, or the white or blue turban. 
The great majority wear the loose flowing robe of the 
Bible times. Everybody is shouting; the water carriers 
are tinkling their brass cups ; the drivers of horses, mules, 
and camels are shouting to one another and to people 
on foot to clear the road; and the din and confusion 
make it desirable occasionally to step off the main thor- 
oup-hfare into one of the little side streets where no 
teams go and where the fascinating bazaars are found. 
Small little rooms in front, but if you go in they take 
you to the rear, and there you find quite extensive apart- 
ments filled with their wares, and where you are given a 
seat and oflPered most delicious Turkish coffee or yet 
more delicious Persian tea, and they gather about and 
wish to show you goods and say, " If you do not wish to 

[125 



buy all right — we like to show you just the same " ; and 
it is amazing what wonderful productions they bring 
forth. Never has the temptation been so strong to buy 
things as here. 

Joseph Cohen has a well-known place here, largely 
patronized by Americans and English, as he has the 
reputation of asking one price and sticking to it. I 
went in there where it was cool and quiet and took a rest 
and had a cup of delicious tea, and while I was enjoying 
myself he had two Arabian servants exhibit some rare 
and wonderful embroideries which are made by the 
women of the harems. Two or three of these I would 
have bought if I could have seen my way clear to get 
them home. One was a table or bed spread of most 
exquisite design, color, and workmanship. I never saw 
a more beautiful thing. Another was a lady's evening 
cape or short coat, simply the loveliest piece of work I 
ever saw. I just had to get up and come away or he 
would have persuaded me to buy them both, and yet 
there was no effort to urge me to buy. He simply said 
he had by good fortune happened to chance on them on 
a trip to Mecca and couldn't resist them and here they 
were for anybody that wanted something that was " 'par 
excellence" They were not dear, $200 for the spread 
and $40 for the cape. I have no doubt but that the 
first would bring in New York $1000 and the latter at 
least $300. They were as much gems as rubies or 
diamonds. 

Every conceivable thing almost is for sale, and many 

126] 



articles have a separate bazaar or street for them, e.g,, 
there is the bazaar for brass goods, for shoes, for gold 
and silver workers, for tent-makers, for iron workers, 
etc., etc. These manufacturers have their work all go- 
ing on in the narrow streets and small shops fronting 
on them. The floors are the hard clay, and they all seem 
very busy. They seem to be a very self-respecting 
people and do not bother or interfere with strangers. 
I have been down through this district twice already, it 
is an ever interesting show. Tuesday afternoon I went 
up to what is called the Citadel, which is built on a high 
hill overlooking the city. It was built by Saladin, and 
is now occupied by English troops. There are within 
the walls extensive barracks, and also the finest mosque 
in the city; and from this point one gets a view of the 
valley for miles up and down the river. You can plainly 
see the Pyramids at Gizeh and at Sakkara from this 
point, also the whole city with its 400 minarets and 
mosques that lie immediately below you. The sight is 
one never to be forgotten, especially if seen when the 
sun is setting in the west. 

Wednesdajr I spent the morning in the museum, 
which is a huge affair and where all the finds of the ex- 
tensive excavations which are constantly going on are 
stored. The building is quite new, fire proof, and well 
designed and already nearly full. It is interesting to 
see how in the early days the artists expressed their ideas, 
and how crude they were in copying what they saw; for 
instance, one cannot understand why 5000 years ago 

[127 



they could not have represented the human figure better 
than they did. There is a wooden coffin, or mummy box, 
made up of a good many pieces and pinned together by 
wooden pins, and the top is so cut as to represent a re- 
cumbent woman ; it is quite a remarkable performance — 
and this was made some 3000 years before Christ. The 
art here was in taking such a number of different-sized 
pieces and of such unusual shapes and forming them 
into a casket. It must have been a very skilful work- 
man who did this. In iron, gold, silver, and pottery they 
were very indifferent workmen, and there is nothing 
worth copying that I found at all. Art in designing 
took a wonderful step forward between the times of 
Rameses and Pompeii. There must have been an inter- 
mediate period of development and growth, if one 
could only know or learn about it, that would be full of 
interest. 



128] 



XXVII 

On S. S. Egypt, 227 Miles above Cairo 

December 13. 

The jar of the engines will make my writing 
somewhat erratic, but as we have nothing to do except 
gaze at the muddy water or look across at the fields 
green with the sugar cane on the one side or at the brown 
rocky cliffs on the other, it seemed a good time to begin 
this letter and set down the occurrences of the past three 
days while they were fresh in my mind. Tuesday at 10 
A.M. sharp, fifty-one human bodies (supposed to have 
souls — although subsequent experiences have demon- 
strated a lack of brains) started out from Cairo on 
board the new Thomas Cook & Sons steamboat Egypt; 
of the fifty-one about one-half are German, about fifteen 
Americans, the balance French, Belgian, and English. 
I regret to say that the Americans, or at least six or 
eight of them, are of that type that shame us before the 
world — loud mouthed, ignorant, and abominably obtru- 
sive — of the " spread-eagle " variety, that ride in auto- 
mobiles and want everybody to know it and get out of 
their way; how I hate them! There is one very good 
fellow amongst them, a man from New Orleans with 
his son and his deceased wife's sister. Formerly he was 
in Chicago. He is a sensible, clever business man 61 
years old, and he and I find much to talk about. He is 
over here on account of his son's health — who is delicate 
but a very nice fellow. 

[139 



The French party are generally good although they 
are very noisy when other people are talking in any lan- 
guage except French. I imagine that they consider all 
other dialects a sort of barbarian babble, not deserving 
any consideration. At my table there is a very charm- 
ing German lady from Freiburg and her young niece, 
who both speak very good English and so we are com- 
panionable. We have a dragoman whom I met in St. 
Louis during the World's Fair. Tuesday we ran from 
ten until one, during which lunch was served, and reach- 
ing Bedrashan took donkeys and rode to the top of a 
winding embankment with the water of the Nile on both 
sides (the overflow) through groves of beautiful date 
palms for three or four miles, and came to the ruins of 
the ancient city of Memphis. Nothing remains of this 
but heaps of sun-dried bricks, but beyond a little, we 
came upon a granite figure of Rameses the Great lying 
prone upon his back, where he is blocked up on walls 
built to hold him after the finders got him up out of the 
mud where he had lain for many centuries. This statue 
is 25 feet long without the crown, which is 6>4 feet long, 
and lies near by. It is an enormous affair. A little 
further on we came to a wooden shed and this covers 
another colossal statue of the same gentleman, this time 
done in limestone. This is 45 feet long, hes on its back, 
propped up as the other, but has a flight of steps and 
a platform so that we could go up and look down on 
his majesty. He has a smiling face, big thick negro 
lips, and if alive would cut quite a figure walking about, 

130] 



but it would take a deal of cloth to make him a pair of 
trousers. They are both Kameses II. 

Here we again took our donkeys and rode for three- 
quarters of an hour, and came to what is caUed the Step 
Pyramid or Pyramid Zoser; near this are ten others of 
lesser dimensions. This is one of the oldest pyramids 
known. It consists of six stages, the lowest is 37>^ feet 
in height, the next 36, the third 34^, the fourth 32^ 
feet, the fifth 31 feet, the top one 29 1-3 feet, while each 



stage recedes 6 feet. It is built of a clay limestone and 
is rough and uncomely on the exterior. It was built by 
King Zoser for his own tomb. There is an entrance into 
it and a room for the sarcophagus, but this is not now 
accessible; and beyond this just a short distance is the 
small house of Mariette the French Egyptologist, in 
which he lived while he was carrying on the excavations 
when he discovered the Apis Tombs in 1851-1858. There 
is nothing of particular interest here except as being 
connected with Mariette, but a little ways farther on 
we reached what is called the " Serapeum " or subter- 
ranean Tombs of Apis or Sacred Bull hewn in the solid 
rock. You come to a sloping way down which you go 
until you reach a depth where a tunnel can be made, and 
then this subterranean gallery is carried some hundreds 
of feet on a general level with side galleries flanking it 
on either side but with the floors sunken some ten feet 
below that of the main gallery. There are twenty-six 

[131 



of these side places and in each of them there is a huge 
granite sarcophagus 13 feet long, 7 feet high, and 11 
feet wide, single blocks of granite hollowed out and hav- 
ing a huge cover; in these were placed the remains of 
Apis or the Sacred Bull. This Sacred Bull, by the way, 
was a most surprising animal in its parental line, being 
nothing more nor less than the son of Lightning for a 
father and a cow for mother who never had any child 
excepting this Apis. No wonder it was sacred. 

How they ever got these enormous blocks of stone 
which weigh over 60 tons down this narrow passage and 
turned them square around and pushed them into these 
lateral chambers and then lowered them down some ten 
or more feet to the floor, I don't know. It seems to 
have been done, and these same stones were quarried at 
Assuan and brought some 600 miles down the river 
to begin with. From here we rode back to our steamer, 
not reaching it until quite after dark. For a first day's 
ride 6 hours is pretty tough and the whole outfit were 
well played out, and it was rather interesting hearing the 
women compare notes as to the extent of black and blue 
spots each enjoyed. The partitions between the cabins, 
I might explain, are somewhat thin. 

Wednesday luckily we did nothing but rest and loaf, 
the boat steaming ahead steadily all day. Yesterday, 
Thursday, we landed at Beni Hassan, or what was Beni 
Hassan until Mehemet Ali wiped it out a few years ago 
on account of its people becoming such a tough lot that 
even he couldn't stand it any longer, but I am bound 

132] 



to say that their descendants are numerous about there 
yet, for a more rascally set of donkey boys and bakshish 
beggars I never met. Here we took semblances of don- 
keys and rode for three-quarters of an hour and then dis- 
mounted (which is accomplished by throwing the right 
leg over the donkey's head and then sHpping off, for 
woe betide him who undertakes to get off American 
fashion, for surely the saddle will follow and one is apt 
to find himself on the ground under the donkey with the 
huge saddle suspended under the donkey's belly ) . Then 
we took a long, tiresome, rough walk up a steep hill until 
we came to a tomb cut into the solid granite rock, some 
30 feet long, 20 feet high, and 20 feet wide. In this the 
body was placed, enclosed in a sarcophagus of stone. 
These latter have all been taken away and are now in the 
Cairo Museum. These are amongst the oldest tombs 
known and were built some 3500 years B. C. There 
are some thirty of them but we only visited five, as they 
were quite similar excepting in size. One of them was 
remarkable in having four great columns, eight-sided, 
and fluted with Doric capitals, which outranks in age by 
many centuries anything the Greeks did ; and so another 
fact is established, that the Doric is not Greek but 
Egyptian. 

This morning we have been steaming along and at 
11: 30 we are now waiting for the lock at the supple- 
mentary dam at Assiut to be opened so as to get through. 
The dredge is at work and we may be delayed some- 
what. Before I forget it let me say that at Cairo I sent 

[133 



off Christmas cards to you all that I hope you may re- 
ceive before the day is passed. 

5 P.M. 

We got through the lock right after lunch and came 
on for half a mile and reached our dock at Assiut, and 
then took donkeys and have been off for a ride through 
the town to the foot of the bluiFs, and then climbed a hill 
and saw one of the tombs where the sacred jackals and 
wolves were interred. Some of the party went up fur- 
ther, but as I had been fooled once before into climbing 
up this steep hill I resumed my donkey and returned 
through the busy bazaars for which this town is famous. 
It is a city of 45,000 people, with many very elegant 
residences and fine grounds. There is a large American 
Mission here with a school of some 400 pupils, and its 
beneficial influence is noticeable in the freedom from 
beggars and in the number of people that speak quite 
tolerable English. I am finishing this letter here so it 
may go in the bag of mail for Cairo to-night, and if 
good luck attends it you should get it pretty nearly as 
soon as if mailed from Naples next Monday. 

This city is situated in about the most fertile part of 
the Nile valley. You can see the beautiful green fields 
of wheat and alfalfa extending for miles up and down 
the river and the valley is quite wide. There must be 
much wealth here, judging from the many fine houses. 
The railway has a large handsome station, the streets are 
well kept and watered, and the long barrage (2200 feet) 
stretches across the river, giving a very picturesque ap- 

134] 



pearance. As I write there is a great amount of gabble 
going on, as there are a score or more of Arabs gathered 
on the shore bargaining with our passengers to sell lace 
scarfs, buffalo-hide whips, earthenware, etc., etc.; they 
ask about four times as much as they expect to get and 
there you are. I bought one of the whips (which are 
really very nice) . I asked the price; five shillings, I was 
told. I said, " I will give you a shilling, no more; " it 
was rejected with scorn and I turned to go away when 
an onlooker grabbed it out of the man's hand and said, 
" Give the shilling," and I did and took the whip. I 
suppose this way of trading is understood from the 
beginning. 

I shall write next I suppose from Assuan. I am 
enjoying eveiy minute and gaining somewhat in flesh 
arid look very well unless my glass lies. 



[135 



XXVIII 

On S. S. Egypt 
AssuAN, December 22, 3 p.m. 

A WEEK ago last Friday I dispatched my last letter 
to you and now at the southern end of my trip the pleas- 
ure is again mine to convey to you my love first and then 
tell you something of what has transpired since the 13th. 

On Saturday, the 14th, we steamed up the river 
steadily all day and in the evening anchored mid-stream 
where we remained all night. They do not run the boat 
after dark owing to the sand bars on which they are 
liable to ground if it isn't light enough to see the ripples 
where the water is shallow. Sunday morning we started 
as soon as daylight allowed, and about 7 o'clock were 
opposite Esna and passed the barrage which the Govern- 
ment is constructing there. There were hundreds of 
natives with a large fleet of small sail vessels at work — 
loading dirt from the shores of the river below the dam 
and taking it above the site of the same where they an- 
chored and unloaded it into the river, the object being 
as I suppose to dam the river part way across and force 
the water through the new channel over which they have 
already built the barrage. 

A barrage is only a dam with gates in it which can 
be raised or lowered at will. The barrage is already 
built from the west shore out into the channel some 400 
feet — and one the east side they have gone back onto the 
dry ground and have built some 1000 feet of barrage 

136] 



through which they will make a new channel for the river 
and then there will be a heavy embankment between the 
two sections. There are four of these barrages on the 
river ; one at a point between Cairo and Alexandria ; one 
at Assiut; one just above Luxor (this is the unfinished 
one) ; and the big one just above here, which I have not 
yet seen. The object of them is to hold back the waters 
of the Nile in storage, to be let down from time to time 
for the irrigation of the valley. It was very interesting 
to me to see what extensive preparations are necessary to 
carry on such work. First, the large number of build- 
ings for housing the men; then a big hospital, for the 
men are continually getting sick from exposure and 
working so much in water, and getting injured through 
carelessness. 

We kept on our way all Sunday and about 6 p.m. 
tied up for the night at the landing place for Denderah, 
which small place is about 2^ miles back from the river 
on the west side. Monday we were called at 6 : 30 and 
had breakfast at 7: 15 and at 8 got on our donkeys and 
rode on a high and dusty embankment over to and 
through the small village of Denderah to the great 
temple of Hathor. It was an awfully dusty, dirty ride, 
for we were constantly meeting hundreds of camels and 
as many donkeys all loaded with dirt coming from the 
extensive excavation works being carried on in uncover- 
ing the site of the temple. One could scarcely breathe, 
the air was so full of dirt, and we were simply covered 
with it by the time we got back to the boat. But the 

[137 



temple was worth seeing at any cost. This temple has 
been reconstructed several times, the present one was 
mostly built by Tiberius, Hadrian, and Nero ; Cleopatra 
had much of the work of embellishing and decorating 
done at her expense. The main temple is now uncov- 
ered, but excavating is going on outside of it, with the 
view of exposing the small adjoining temples and rooms 
that investigations show exist. There were hundreds of 
men and boys at work here and a roar of voices came 
up from the crowd as I stood on top of one of the high 
walls and looked down into the volcano of dust. This 
temple has only been exposed during the last ten years, 
so it was new to me. I cannot explain it any more than 
to say that it is one of the most splendid on the Nile, 
quite a good second to Karnak. 

We returned to the ship at 11: 30 and started once 
more up stream and arrived at Luxor ( ancient Thebes ) 
at 4 P.M., where at once I took a carriage and drove out 
about three miles to get a look at Karnak before the 
morrow, when the crowd would come. It was splendid 
to see it once more. It is the most imposing work of 
man's hands that I have ever seen. That evening nearly 
all of our passengers rode out to see the ruins by moon- 
light, but as I am not much given to mooning around I 
remained on board and wrote up my diary, which, by the 
way, I am keeping up pretty fully in detail with the idea 
that some time in the future it may be of interest to you 
and the grandchildren. I leave the boat to-morrow and 
go to the Savoy Hotel on the Island of Elephantine 

138] 



right in front of this place, where I shall remain until 
January 15 and then return to Cairo on the same boat 
on her second trip. I shall write you further as to the 
trip from Luxor to this place this week sometime, but 
will get this off on this evening's train. I am in excel- 
lent health and enjoying this perfect weather. 



[Ig9 



XXIX 

AssuAN, December 29. 

The record of the past week could not be more con- 
cisely expressed than by the single word " loafing." 
There is positively nothing to do but enjoy the weather. 
The English element is strong here, as the English carry 
on everything in Egypt, and they have got the art of 
loafing down to a fine point. We read of their sports 
in India, and they have imported them into the Soudan, 
and therefore I am able to see how they disport them- 
selves, as there is quite a community of them here and 
at the big dam five miles above, and two or three times 
a week they have some sort of a sport that it is worth 
while to see. They call them " Gymkhanas," I won't 
vouch for that spelling, but it sounds like that. 

Last Wednesday they gave one of them on the 
grounds of the Cataract Hotel on the mainland and 
invited the guests of the Savoy on Elephantine Island 
(where I am) to attend. We all went over and it was 
an afi'air full of fun. Donkey races in which three 
women rode. The fastest one went at a little gentle 
gallop and the other two trotted along and came in sev- 
eral rods behind. The prize was 50 piastres, $2.50. 
Then the potato game; six big pails were set in a row 
about ten feet apart — six men on donkeys rode up be- 
tween the pails and stopped. At a distance of 200 feet 
beyond six potatoes were laid on the ground 10 feet 
apart; 100 feet beyond this line six more were laid; and 

140] 



100 feet further six more were laid. The game was 
that when the word " Go " was given, each man started 
for the first line of potatoes, dismounted when he reached 
them, picked up each his potato, and rode back and put 
his potato into his pail ; and then rode off to the second 
one, and then the third. The man who got all three po- 
tatoes in his pail first won the prize, $2.50. It turned 
out to be about the most ridiculous performance I ever 
saw. 

The donkeys started off in good style and the fel- 
lows all jumped off and grabbed a potato, but it was 
another thing when they went to get on. (These don- 
keys, you understand, are the ones picked up on the 
street and are all accustomed to being controlled by their 
donkey-boys, who yell, halloo, and pound them; but here 
the boys were not allowed about and every man man- 
aged his own beast.) First a saddle turned and the 
fellow went launching out into the sand; another didn't 
like having a fellow so active around him and pulled and 
jumped around so his man could not get any nearer than 
the length of the reins to him ; another didn't propose to 
go back toward the pail and so carried his man in the op- 
posite direction ; another got back quite near the pail and 
then was afraid of the pail and balked and nothing 
would budge him; and finally the last man to get his 
potato and get aboard his donkey got in first. 

Then the second bout was funnier yet. The donkeys 
did every conceivable thing except what was wanted, and 
here were six energetic and hilarious young Englishmen 

[141 



yelling, kicking, jerking, and going on like mad, and 
their little beasts quietly standing still or going off in the 
opposite direction. The prize was won by a little 
Frenchman who came into the game at the last moment 
and who had a donkey whom no one would take, but 
who quietly went back and forth on a walk and per- 
i'ormed it all without haste but nevertheless got through 
with the job while all the others were moving Heaven 
and earth to beat the rest. Then followed a polo game 
on donkeys. The balls were as big as footballs — ^but if 
they had been as large as a balloon it wouldn't have 
mattered. The donkeys had it their own way, and made 
it funnier, if such a thing were possible, than the po- 
tato game. I will leave this for your imagination. 

I have received Christmas letters and have acknowl- 
edged them all separately. We had a grand dinner at 
our hotel, which was so grand that it laid out a good 
share of the female contingent for the next twenty-four 
hours, and some of them look rather peaked yet. 

I left off in my last letter at Luxor — we left there 
early Friday morning, stopping at Esna, where there 
is a most beautiful small temple with splendid columns 
each having a different capital worked out on the lines 
of the trees of Egypt, the palm, lotus, papyrus, etc., etc., 
all most harmoniously combined. Then to Edfu, where 
there is a wonderfully splendid and massive temple with 
a pylon 140 feet high and all in very good state of pres- 
ervation. Saturday morning we made a stop at Kom- 
ombo. There are but small portions of this temple left, 

142] 



but there are some very interesting things about it. On 
one wall were drawings of surgical instruments exactly 
the same as we use now — also hieroglyphic instructions 
how to prepare certain medicines for certain diseases, 
and prescriptions how to take them — and there is on 
one of the walls the most exquisite bit of carving of a 
cartouche and the symbolic writing that I have seen any- 
where. I hope to get a photograph of it. The decora- 
tions here were mostly made under the reign of Tiberius, 
and Cleopatra had a hand in it. 

While at Luxor, of course we spent several hours 
at Karnak — we also took the long, all-day excursion out 
to the Tombs of the Kings. Since my last visit here in 
'93 they have discovered ever so many new tombs — some 
of them finer than any I saw before. In one of them 
they found a most exquisitely carved figure of a man 
lying on his back with his hands folded over his breast 
with a noble sweet face, by far the best thing in Egyp- 
tian statuary I have seen anywhere, and I think it was 
so much better to leave it here in the man's own tomb — 
where he designed to have it — with all the appropriate 
surroundings, than to take it away and place it in a 
museum. 

In the olden time, viz., '93, we used to eat our lunch 
near the tomb Of Rameses, but now since the temple of 
Hatisu has been unearthed (it is quite one of the most 
interesting things on the Nile) , Thos. Cook & Sons have 
built a little rest house just a few rods from the temple 
and we had our lunch served there, and then after a rest 

[143 



of an hour we went over to Hatisu and spent an hour 
admiring the palace that she hved in. The authorities 
have restored quite a large part of this in rebuilding the 
long colonnades which fronted toward the Nile and re- 
constructing the two terraces that made the approach. 
It has a very imposing look as you approach it from 
the valley. The mountain rises abruptly behind it, clifF- 
shaped, and they are now unearthing further portions of 
it and it promises to be one of the largest pieces of con- 
struction found in the whole of Egypt. The colors on 
the walls and columns are perfectly preserved, the light 
blues and pinks predominating, and the whole structure 
is full of light and beauty. 

The Assuan Dam is the thing here and I have 
already been up to see it twice, and expect to go again 
this week, as I have written a note to the engineer in 
charge asking him to give me an interview, which I am 
sure he will do. I have got a book on it, but I have some 
questions to ask. There are several novel features about 
it and one can see very plainly that if the Austin people 
in Texas had given the thought to their great dam that 
the English gave to this it would have been a success 
instead of a huge financial loss. Cheap engineering is 
the bane of American construction. Although this dam 
is such a huge affair they have already begun work on 
raising it 18 feet higher and thickening it some third of 
its present thickness. The fact is that the results have 
far exceeded the anticipated benefits and as a paying 
measure the enlargement is most urgently demanded. 

144] 



They increase its capacity two and one-half times, that 
is, from 900,000,000 to over 2,000,000,000. The job 
will take five years. They worked 12,000 men five years 
on the present dam. 

P. S. In reading over my letter I find that I have 
said but little of my daily life and experiences which 
may be of some interest to you. I am stopping at the 
Savoy Hotel. It is on the Island of Elephantine, which 
is a small island in the middle of the river and just in 
front of the town of Assuan. There is large Hberty 
allowed in spelling the name of this town ; Cook & Sons 
spell it " Asuan," Baedeker "Assouan," the Govern- 
ment engineers arid the authorities " Assuan," which 
strikes me as a happy medium, and so I spell it unless I 
forget myself and spell it otherwise. The Cataract 
House is owned by the same company who own the 
Savoy and is located on the mainland. I chose the Savoy 
on account of its having a large pleasant garden with 
turf and trees; the Cataract has nothing but sand and 
a view. They are equally patronized. Both are fairly 
good, but the coffee here is bad and they do not have 
good fruit. The days are much alike. I get up at 7 : 30, 
breakfast at 8, smoke and read the paper, and then write 
up my diary, read (just now the history of Capri, and 
have read the book on the big dam) , sit out in the garden 
under the trees, go across the river and get a donkey- 
boy and ride up through the Bishareen Camp or to the 
great quarries where they got out all the stones for the 
famous temples, monoliths, etc., that are now the won- 

[145 



ders of the world — or to the Great Dam — one hour's dis- 
tance on a good donkey. From 2 : 30 to 3 : 30 I am liable 
to take a nap of one-half to three-quarters of an hour, 
then go for a walk, read, write or talk until 6, then 
dress for dinner at 7: 30, and retire never later than 10. 
I enjoy these nice warm days and the nights are refresh- 
ingly cool — no mosquitoes. 

As I have many letters to answer I keep quite busy 
after all — but to tell the truth too much leisure is be- 
ginning to wear on me. I met Ben Miller on the boat 
last Tuesday or Monday — he had just returned from 
Khartum and said it was very interesting but the ride is 
awfully hot and dusty from Wady Haifa, and I am 
not particularly anxious for that. 

My plan now is to remain here until the 15th of 
January, probably go to Luxor and stop there a week — 
they have a splendid new hotel, the Winter Palace, and 
Cairo is apt to be cool up to February — then go to Cairo 
for one to two weeks, and then go to Alexandria and 
sail for Genoa or Marseilles and visit Nimes, Avignon, 
Aries — ^then up to Paris so as to get there some time 
about March 15 and stay there until it is warm enough 
to go to Mount Saint Michel and other northern points. 



I 



146] 



XXX 

Savoy Hotel 
AssuAN, January 4, 1908. 

Another week has gone, I hardly know where. It 
is wonderful how the days slip by, even when one is not 
doing anything but loafing. 

The days of the past week have been very warm as 
far as the thermometer is concerned, during the day 
(say from 10:30 o'clock to 5 o'clock) it ranges on the 
front porch of this hotel from 75 to 85 degrees in the 
shade, and to-day and yesterday it marked 112 degrees 
in the sun. I am interested to know by practical ex- 
perience the quality of dry desert air as compared with 
the humidity of Milwaukee and of the Italian cities. For 
example, yesterday I desired to visit the great dam 
once more, and so crossed the river (you know this 
house is on Elephantine Island) and got a donkey and 
a boy at 9 : 30 a.m. and went up there — it is 50 minutes' 
sharp ride, some 5 3^ miles — spent two and a half hours 
there with the engineer, and rode back, reaching the 
hotel just in time for lunch. It was a most perfect 
day and I made the trip with only pleasure and was per- 
fectly amazed on my return to find both thermometers, 
one registering 112 degrees in the sun and the other 
83 degrees in the shade, and yet with no feeling of op- 
pression or weariness such as we feel at home even in 
an 80-degree temperature. The engineer, a young fel- 
low, at the dam told me that they had it at 120 degrees 

[147 



during the summer there quite frequently, and that not 
in the sun. He said, on my exclaiming about it, " Well, 
it is a bit warm, you know, but we get three months' 
leave of absence each summer, you know, and that tones 
us up, you know, quite a bit." 

There are a large number of Englishmen employed 
on the works in various departments, and the Govern- 
ment has made them very comfortable. It has built a 
perfectly exquisite little village for them, laid out 
grounds with pretty winding streets, with palms, flower 
beds, and green lawns ; the houses are all white concrete 
with wide piazzas on all four sides, green blinds, and nice 
sidewalks, and one can imagine many more uncomfort- 
able places in which to put in a few years than this new 
little town just below the dam. If the ladies are com- 
panionable they could have a very charming time. The 
houses are mostly one story, with an interior court^ — 
the head officers have two-story houses, larger but not 
any more attractive. It is no small job to create a place 
like this in the desert sands and rocks. They bring in 
soil from the valley on trains of cars, and this is carried 
in baskets on the natives' heads and spread over the 
ground from one to three feet in depth; and then they 
wet it and keep it wet and can grow anything they want 
to and can have three or four crops a year. 

Nearly every house had a garden with vegetables 
and flowers. The natives all have their quarters at some 
distance away, so that this little colony is quite unique 
in its respectability. The offices are across the river 

148] 



and are perched up on a hill, where they get all the air 
stirring, and are very capacious and comfortable. The 
English know how to, and do, care for their men whom 
they send to serve them in their colonies. The U. S. 
distinctly does not. Our ministers, our consuls, and all 
that class of servants live in all kinds of cheap and un- 
stable quarters the world over. England's representa- 
tives have comfort and houses wherever they go. We 
ought to be ashamed, but we are not ; we look on at the 
poor wretches and chuckle over our poor economies. To 
make the thing harmonious, though, we send about the 
poorest " stuff " abroad we have. 

One other day this week I went across the east branch 
of the river and climbed a high hill by the worst path I 
ever attempted. The sand was more than ankle deep 
and so yielding that when I returned to lunch I told 
the nice old German lady that sits next to me at table 
that I slipped back two steps for every one that I went 
forward and that the only way I managed to reach the 
top was by turning around and going the other way — 
and do you know that she looked at me in astonishment 
and said, " Do you really mean that? " but she is a dear. 
She is a quite pretty woman with white hair which her 
maid dresses with remarkably good taste — pretty stout 
— seventy years old, and quite lame. She has no chil- 
dren, but an adopted son who lives in Tokio and is em- 
ployed by the German Government as an expert in 
Japanese art. She says he is considered to be the best 
authority on the subject living, and he also is employed 

[149 



by the Japanese Government in advising as to the col- 
lections the Government is making of ancient produc- 
tions. She also tells me that she has in Freiburg the 
largest and most valuable collections of Japanese curios 
in Germany. She travels with a big trunk full of books 
and spends most of her time reading and writing, has 
a very large correspondence, and one day said she had 
just finished answering eighteen letters. On New Year's 
she made me a present of a very nice cane, and in re- 
turn I gave her a miniature cat cut out of rock that was 
found in one of the tombs. It cost 5 cents, but I never 
told her that. She thinks I am the most stupendous liar 
she ever met, I think, for I surprise her nearly every 
meal by some story and I keep a most solemn counte- 
nance while I watch her astonishment. Generally by 
the next meal she has got the joke digested and she has 
a good laugh over it. 

Monday I pull out of here and go to Luxor for a 
week and then to Cairo. I shall have a fine time at 
Luxor, for I shall give more time to the tombs, and 
mean to see them all. 

Did I ever tell you that I wrote to the Governor of 
Colorado about the man who made that beautiful 
miner's pick that I brought back from Colorado a year 
ago last summer? You remember the man made it in 
the State's Prison and I heard about it when I was out 
there, and it seemed such a pity that a fellow with such 
ability and artistic taste should be shut up for three years 
that I was moved to compassion and wrote the Gover- 

150] 



nor all about the matter and begged for clemency. It 
just happened that this Governor knew my father and 
knew somewhat of me — nothing very bad, I guess — 
at least he answered my letter at once and said he was 
greatly obliged to me for calling his attention to the 
matter and to say that the man was already released. 
You may be sure that I was glad and some day I hope 
to see my " Salvage " as I call him, and see what sort of 
a bird I did release. He is at least a genius, and I don't 
believe ever robbed a mine. 

I must tell you about some of the people here at the 
hotel, as I think you will be interested. First on the list 
is a youngish man registered as Graf Diepholz — ^there 
are four young men with him that always are about him ; 
ride, sit, play ; whatever he does they do. He has a large 
suite of rooms ; he is tall, some thirty years old, and has a 
stiff leg at the knee — is quiet and seems much the gentle- 
man. This is Prince George, Duke of Cumberland, 
and grandson of the King of Hanover, who was cousin 
of Queen Victoria. 

Then there is an English duchess, tall and rather 
good looking, who (all for love) married beneath her, a 
Major Collins who had " ducats." She resigned her 
title that she might have her fling and she marches 
around smoking cigarettes like a man and is generally 
sneered at by all the other women, whom she hates. 
Then there is a Sir (something) Stephen MacKenzie, a 
bald-headed bent old man, who is England's greatest 
surgeon. There are a large number of queer old Eng- 

[151 



lish women that bring their stockings down to the break- 
fast table and knit diligently while their tea is being 
prepared — that sort you know always drink tea. Then 
there are many notable and wealthy Germans — one 
" Graf Vietenhap," he is a Baron — then there is the 
Senator " Lappanburg " from Hamburg; we play whist 
together evenings. There are several young couples 
who are making the Egyptian tour as a bridal affair, and 
then a large number who are seeking lost health in the 
desert. My old lady is here for her lameness and said 
to-day that she is better than she has been for a long 
time. There are people here who are going to Khartum 
— going around the world — going to stay here until heat 
of April drives them away. The hotel is nearly full now 
and the steamers are coming up loaded. There are only 
two a week so that I think they will all be taken care of. 
The Egypt left Cairo Tuesday last and has 60 pas- 
sengers aboard, among the list I see the name of Richard 
Croker — I suppose he is coming to steal the dam. It 
occurred to me yesterday that one proof that the Scrip- 
tures are not all inspired is that they say, " Thou shalt 
not swear;" and yet a creative Providence made the 
Egyptian " fly " and no man can live in this country and 
fight these abominable little beasts without giving way 
more or less to profanity. There is nothing that equals 
their persistency. 

Sunday Morning. 

I have found that some of my people that I under- 
took to describe are different; you will notice my eras- 
ures and interlineations. I think I have got the thing 

152] 



straight now. There is one man here who every even- 
ing joins Prince George's circle, who must be a musician 
of some note, for last night as I was sitting near the 
party I heard him say to MacKenzie: " If I had my 
life to live over again I would devote myself entirely to 
leading an orchestra, as it is more the thing I love than 
the composition." His name is Jackman; you may 
some of you have heard of him, but the name is new to 
me. He plays the piano occasionally while Count Grote, 
one of the Prince's suite, sings. It is about all there 
is to do here — watch your fellow-creatures, and then 
pass remarks about them, and this is all the more amus- 
ing and easy when your victims are these self-sufficient 
English, especially Enghsh women. They fling their 
importance in your face; they revel in their conceit; 
they aggravate you with their righteousness, and you 
grow wicked in your desire to be different from them; 
they glory in their awkwardness, and take unto them- 
selves credit for their red noses and lanky figures. It is 
to be hoped that there will be a special territory set off 
for them in the " vast hereafter," so that a sensible 
person can really enjoy Heaven if he gets there. 

I must get this off now and go for a walk before it 
gets too warm. I go to Luxor to-morrow and will be in 
Cairo two weeks from to-day. 



[153 



XXXI 

Luxor, Saturday Evening, January 11. 

Last Monday I was in Assuan and went on board 
the steamer that evening as she left at 5 o'clock Tues- 
day morning. I would gladly have remained there for 
one or two weeks more, but the Savoy Hotel was simply 
impossible. The coffee was merely dregs anl there was 
a penuriousness about the whole affair that wore on my 
nerves. It seems that the company, that controls many 
of these Nile hotels, had put out the manager of last 
year and in his place has put a young fellow who seems 
to tliink that all he has to do is to show dividends, wliich 
he may do this year, but never again, for everyone is 
disgusted — therefore I came down here where the 
" Winter Palace " is run on hotel principles, and it is 
very good. It has been an extremely hot week, so much 
so that I have not been on as many excursions as I other- 
wise would. 

The hotel and town are about three miles from the 
temple of Karnak — but the large temple of Luxor is 
right here, three minutes' walk from the hotel. You can 
take a carriage and drive to Karnak, or, which I prefer, 
take donkeys and ride out there in half an hour. I have 
been out once this week and shall go again to-morrow 
afternoon. The day I was there, Wednesday, it was 
so hot that, with the dust raised by the men and boys 
who are working in the extensive excavations, I couldn't 
stand it for more than an hour — and so did little more 

354] 



than sit in the shade and take in the enormities of the 
surroundings. Everything is on a gigantic scale. The 
ruins cover nearly 1000 acres, taking the temple of 
Mut as part of the whole. There are some six pylons — 
tremendous massive entrance-ways — portals, or what- 
ever you might call them. They are great wedge-shaped 
masses of stone, 150 feet in length, 100 feet high, 20 
feet wide on top and some 40 feet at the bottom. They 
are laid up with large stones on smoothly dressed beds 
without mortar and the outsides are all covered with big 
figures of Rameses or some other great fellow — striding 
along mth one hand gripping the hair of a lot of poor 
wretches while the other grasps a club with which he is 
threatening them, or else he has accomplished this dem- 
olition and is now seen making offerings to the gods, 
and they had a lot of them — Osiris, Hathor, Mut, Isis, 
and no end of others. Passing through the passage- 
way of the pylons you find yourself in a large court 
with huge columns standing around the sides, and pass- 
ing through this large court you come to a huge hall with 
several rows of columns 9 feet in diameter, standing 
about 10 feet apart, that are some 50 feet in height with 
huge stones reaching from one column to another mak- 
ing a roof, and the under surface, or ceiling, is all cov- 
ered with hieroglyphics, cartouches, symbols, etc., etc. — 
dogs, cats, cattle, monkeys, etc., etc. — pretty nearly 
everything was either to eat or to be worshipped. 

They had some queer ideas, those " ancients of 
days; " but I reckon that in 5000 A.D. there will be 

[155 



some rather rude remarks passed upon the subscriber 
and his contemporaries should anything by any possi- 
biKty be found that pertains to them or even to their cen- 
tury — which I greatly doubt. This Kamak Temple at 
one time contained several magnificent monoliths or 
obelisks, but only one is now standing. This is a splen- 
did fellow though — 10 feet square, 90 feet high — a flaw- 
less piece of Assuan red granite, the upper half of it 
covered with gold leaf once, the yellow tinge is still 
plainly visible. The four sides from top to bottom are 
all covered with cartouches of Rameses and his off- 
spring, and inscriptions telling of his mighty deeds, of 
course from his point of view; and you must remember 
that there was no false modesty or retiring bashfulness 
in those days, at least in the household of Rameses. So 
far I have found no evidence of humility or nervous sen- 
sitiveness in the gentleman. He needed no trumpeter 
to go in advance and let people know that he was out for 
a walk. When he got a move on him he only grabbed 
up a club, grabbed all the people by the hair that were 
standing around, and started down street with the lot 
dangling at his hand like a " fly-brush." The only peace 
of mind in those days was enjoyed by those who had 
passed quietly away before R. the Second came into his 
own. 

This man, Rameses, set up huge granite figures of 
himself, some sitting, some standing. He generally had 
a little female figure cut in the same stone standing just 
back of him and by his side. The figure standing is 

156] 



about 7 feet high and the top of her head comes just to 
his knee and is about the size of his big toe in circum- 
ference. That was his wife — or at least one of them. 
It would take about a dozen like that to make noise 
enough to let him know they were about. 

In looking at these old temples and tombs you soon 
come to know a few things that are being constantly 
found — for instance v*''>-'V">»/>-^, a line like that denotes 
water, generally the Nile ; ^ , that is a god ; jp" , that 
is the key of life, and you see it every where, no god, 
goddess, or king ever appeared without one of these g^ 
bow-pins in his hand. (£) , that means the son of the 
sun — ^the highest title that any " son of a gun " ever 
strove for. When you get these learned and know 
" Baksheesh " when you hear it, you are supposed to be 
an accomplished Egyptologist and globe-trotter. 

Yesterday was another very warm day, the ther- 
mometer ranging about 80 degrees in the shade all day. 

To-day we had a nice cool breeze from the north and 
so I took my regular donkey-boy — who by the way is a 
full-grown man with a family — and crossed the river 
and went first some five miles to see the Tombs of the 
Queens — so-called — although one of them that I saw 
was the tomb of a son of Rameses II. These tombs 
have all been discovered within the past two years; un- 
like the Tombs of the Kings, which lie on the further 
side of the mountain, they have never been molested or 
disfigured and are particularly lovely, and the walls are 
covered with the most exquisite carvings and fresh color- 

[157 



ings in bright blues, yellows, and reds, as fresh as if just 
laid on. It must have been a joyful surprise to open 
such splendid ancient things as these. After spending a 
couple of hours here I rode over to the Rest House near 
Queen Hatisu's temple and took lunch, and after an 
hour and a half, again taking my donkey, I returned 
past the Ramesseum, which is mostly in ruins, seeing the 
enormous broken statue of Rameses II, which is the 
biggest thing he ever got out for himself, and which is 
now knocked to pieces — the work of that hoary old 
scoundrel Cambyses, who never let any occasion pass 
when he could get a rap at his arch-enemy Rameses. 
His shade (Rameses) must have groaned in rage when 
C. split him in two at the midriff — or, as Kipling puts 
it, " It must have been the flower of his torment." 

To-morrow I make my last visit to Karnak — Tues- 
day I take the Egypt on her downward trip and reach 
Cairo next week Sunday night if nothing happens. 
There are rumors of cholera in the Holy Land and I 
shall feel uneasy about the quarantine until I get clear 
of Alexandria, so I can't say when I may leave Egypt 
for Genoa, Nice, etc. 



158J 



XXXII 

Luxor, January 15. 

I AM beginning my weekly letter to-day so as to 
make sure of getting it off day after to-morrow, as I 
learn that this will insure catching the mail steamer from 
Alexandria and the delivery in New York in fourteen 
days; otherwise there would be four to six days' delay. 
This may account for your failing to get a letter each 
week while I was up the Nile. To-day is the first day 
since we landed in Egypt (December 2) that has not 
been full of sunshine. The sky is overclouded and there 
is quite a cool wind and the air seems moist. The old 
residents say that it is owing to the dam at Assuan 
holding back the water and the creation of the large lake 
above Philse. This is probably the true cause of it. 

I had made all my arrangements to leave here to-day 
by the S. S. Egypt for Cairo, but as I heard that it is 
still cool there, and as this hotel is most comfortable, 
with excellent coffee, nice rooms, and many pleasant 
guests, I decided yesterday that I would remain here 
another week and go down on the S. S. Rameses the 
Greats which is the same steamer your dear mother and 
I made the trip on in '93 ; this will bring me to Cairo a 
week from next Sunday (the 26th). I will probably 
go to Genoa or Marseilles the first or second week in 
February. I have made the acquaintance of a very 
pleasant young man who is the principal banker here; 
and yesterday, which was the Arabs' Christmas, he in- 

[159 



vited me to come up to their storehouse and see the 
annual distribution of grain to the poor, which I was 
very glad to do. The granary is simply a piece of 
ground some 150 feet square surrounded by a high, 
sun-dried brick wall — on the bare ground and without 
any cover were piled large quantities of all kinds of 
cereals grown hereabouts, wheat, corn, peas, and beans. 
Just inside the large gate Mr. Loscol took his seat and 
two natives in his employ brought a large sack of wheat 
and a measure holding about a peck; there were two 
officers, natives, who stood between Mr. L. and the gate 
and they would let in a man or a woman, whichever was 
the nearest, and they would come and kneel down in 
front of L. and he would, with the help of the men, fill 
the measure and empty it into, generally, the loose end 
of the person's scarf, or whatever they call the long piece 
of cloth that they wrap around them; and they would 
wrap it up, express their thanks, and retire out of the 
gate and another right behind would go through the 
same process. This went on until two large sacks were 
emptied (probably 10 bushels). When the last one 
present had been supplied the gates were closed and the 
benefactions were at an end. 

I asked L. how he knew that none but the truly de- 
serving were helped, and he said that he sent out one or 
two men a few days in advance to inquire about them 
and then these were invited to come and his men were 
expected to remember them. It seemed to me to be a 
very praiseworthy act for so young a fellow, and I told 

160] 



him so; and he said, well, he hked to help the poor, and 
at the same time it helped him. First, it made him very 
popular with the native element, who all liked him; and 
then they talked about it and it brought customers to his 
bank; and I noticed that when he and I walked about 
town all the Arabs would greet him and be very pleased 
when he responded. He took me out for a drive yester- 
day in the country to see a country dance, but when we 
reached there we found that one of the men had just died 
and there was to be no dance, but we had a kodak along 
and got some pictures of the natives which I enclose, 
also one showing the interior of the grain yard. I am 
looking at one of the piles of wheat. The young woman 
behind me is a young lady from Zurich who was also in- 
vited to see the Christmas presentation. Loscol is by the 
side of me. Loscol keeps bachelor quarters over his 
bank and has invited me to dinner with him, and I shall 
enjoy seeing how he hves. He was born in Egypt — 
but his parents are English, descended from Sicilians,, 
hence the name. He is about twenty-four years old, 
speaks English, French, Arabic, and Italian like a 
native of each country, and seems to be a very good 
business man. He is the manager of the bank here, 
which is a branch of a large concern doing business in 
all of the principal cities of the country. He looks and 
speaks like a thorough Enghsh young gentleman. 

I was greatly surprised and pleased yesterday morn- 
ing while I was eating my breakfast to see entering 
the dining-room two ladies whom I met in Pasadena last 

[161 



winter — a Mrs. M. and a Mrs. T., both middle-aged. 
Mrs. M. was the one who owned one of the prettiest 
places there and whose house I was sorely tempted to 
buy. I used to go and look at it every few days and long 
for it. Her husband has died since then and she joined 
Mrs. T. over here last October and is intending to spend 
a year or more abroad. Mrs. T. is the inheritor of large 
wealth and the principal owner of the Thomas Clock 
Factory in the East somewhere. She spends her winters 
at the '' Hotel Green " in Pasadena. I couldn't for my 
life place them when they first came in and was much 
embarrassed when they smiled pleasantly when our eyes 
met and I had to go over and speak with them, but Mrs. 
M. relieved the situation by saying: " I don't believe 
you know who we are; " and I said, " Your faces are 
most familiar, but I can't for my life place you," but the 
instant she said " Pasadena," then it was cleared up. 

They are making the mad mistake of rushing things. 
They came up on a train, have gone out to the Tombs 
of the Kings to-day, and are going by train to Cairo 
Friday, and then to Sicily, and so on, asking everybody 
what is worth seeing and then deciding which of the lot 
they will take in. 

I forgot to tell you of a funny incident that hap- 
pened yesterday when Loscol and I were driving out in 
the country to see the dance ; something happened to the 
harness and the driver stopped to fix it, and a little native 
boy about ten or twelve years old came along and saw 
the kodak and at once ran up to the top of a little knoll 

162] 



near by and, tearing off his rag of a scarf, stood abso- 
lutely naked — a little bit of a most exquisite bronze god 
you ever saw, and smiled a welcome into our eyes, invit- 
ing the kodak to a supreme endeavor to fasten this 
young Adonis in our collection of antiquities. Our 
dragoman glanced at his nudities and with a flourish of 
a stick and picking up his rag and throwing it after 
him bade him begone with his indecencies and perfect 
little human figure. He scampered away quite crest- 
fallen that his efforts should be so grossly misconstrued. 
He wasn't half so bad as some of the statues in the 
UfSzi and the Vatican and much more pleasing and 
admirable. I quite wondered where this native drago- 
man had imbibed the effete civilization that brought 
about this activity in suppressing such slight infringe- 
ment on our ideas of decency. He would be beyond 
price to our friend Anthony Comstock in New York. 

Our American mail is due to-morrow and I wiU leave 
this until I receive your letters and then be able to touch 
any points you may bring up in them. 

The 16th. 

The mail has only brought me one American letter 
and that was from dear Betsey. I am so glad to know 
that she is all right again and riding her horse once more. 

On my trip up the Nile I made a very pleasant ac- 
quaintance in Mrs. Maud Holbach, the authoress of 
" Dalmatia " and other books. She and her husband are 
doing the Nile in a leisurely fashion, and she is writing 
more or less every day. He is a German and she is 

[163 



English. I should put them at say fifty and thirty-eight 
to forty years of age. He is an expert with a kodak and 
illustrates her works. You will find " Dalmatia " inter- 
esting reading if you have not read it before. It is pub- 
lished in the U. S. by John Lane, New York. 

He, Mr. Holbach, plays poor whist, but better than 
none. Outside of that he is a very good companion and 
we have walks and talks together. They were at As- 
suan and now have come down here and we shall see 
them again in Cairo. They spent a winter in California 
some twelve years ago. 

To-day has been the only disagreeable day I ever 
knew in Egypt. The north wind has blown strong all 
day and the sand has been much in the air. You 
wouldn't think it was anything in winter at home, but 
here it causes remark. It isn't cool enough for any fire 
or overcoats. I hope some more mail may come to- 
morrow before it is time to finally mail this. 



164] 



XXXIII 

Cairo, January 27. 

I LEFT Luxor last Wednesday morning and reached 
the landing place (where you take donkeys for the visit 
to Abydos) about midnight. Abydos lies on the west 
side of the Nile and about eight and one-half miles back 
in the country near the foot of the bluffs. Here are 
the ruins of the temples of Rameses II and S ethos I. 
There are only from 5 to 8 feet in height of the walls of 
the former left standing, but you can trace the different 
divisions, and from the remaining portions of the wall 
you can get a faint idea of what the temple was before 
its destruction. The material is a very fine-grained 
white limestone, and on this were traced most graceful 
and beautiful designs, and then covered with bright 
colors of blue, yellow, and red. These colors are now 
as fresh and perfect as if just laid on. It is only a few 
hundred feet from this over to the S ethos temple. 

This is in a much better state of preservation. Many 
of the rooms are almost perfect and the splendor of the 
temple is very apparent. There were a few points 
about this of special interest; for instance, the roofs of 
seven of the rooms are arched, and this was accomplished 
by laying two horizontal very thick courses of stone 
across the top or ceiling of the room and then cutting 
out the arch up into the stones, thus, ""1313]^ 
These ceilings are all painted with bright colors, gener- 
ally in blue with stars in white representing the heavens. 

[165 



The walls are of the same white Hmestone cut in high 
reliefs with figures of men, women, and animals, and 
these are all colored, and on one wall I saw the famous 
Tablet of Abydos, on which are the cartouches or names 
of seventy-four kings of Egypt. These cartouches are 
also in relief and you can perhaps imagine the immense 
amount of labor necessary to cut away the face of these 
stones to leave these reliefs clear and distinct. There are 
many of the massive columns standing with their papy- 
rus capitals, and one gets a very good idea of the sumpt- 
uousness of this temple when it was at its best. The 
ride of seventeen miles on an easy-gaited donkey was 
not in the least tiresome and I stood it without batting 
an eye, as they say. 

One other stop we made at Tell el-Amarna, where 
we walked for eight minutes through a wheatfield to 
see a most exquisite bit of stucco pavement that was once 
the floor of the harem of King Amenophis IV. This 
was discovered only a short time ago and so far nothing 
else of this gorgeous palace has been unearthed. The 
stucco was painted with figures of flowers, animals, and 
fishes, all most perfectly drawn and exquisitely colored. 
The flowers and fishes were as well executed as anything 
of the kind is done to-day, and the coloring is perfectly 
preserved. It was most extraordinary to find this rem- 
nant of 3300 years ago, reveahng the fact of the exist- 
ence of luxury at that far distant period. 

We reached the upper bridge here at Cairo yester- 
day at 11 A.M., but the wind was blowing so strong that 

166] 



it took us until 4 p.m. to get through the draw. I do 
not like to criticize the navigators of Cook's steamers 
but it seemed to me that it was unnecessary to turn the 
steamer three times clear around to get through, and 
together with this and the shouting and yelling of about 
fifty intensely excited Arabs who seemed to have gone 
completely daft, I became quite disgusted. And so I am 
at the end of my Nile journey with some interesting 
things in mind, of which I will tell you. One evening 
young Loscol, the banker of Luxor, came down to my 
hotel to play whist and brought along the clergyman 
who runs the church in Luxor during the winter. He 
was a middle-aged man named Grass. He was a jolly 
fellow and the next day I asked Loscol about him, and 
he said he was a very good friend of his, that he liked 
a good pipe, drank his whisky and soda, and told a good 
story. Said I, " I suppose he isn't very much of a minis- 
ter or cares very much about religion." 

His answer was amusing, " Oh! yes he does, do you 
know he is quite keen on religion." 

That was a new one on me. Loscol had a roller-top 
desk in his office made in Grand Rapids and an Ameri- 
can refrigerator in his rooms, and then I appreciated the 
fact that the United States is extending its business into 
foreign countries and understood how it is that our ex- 
ports have reached such large figures as compared with 
only a few years ago. On the steamer coming down 
there was a man by the name of Douglas Sladen, who is 
an author. One of his books is called " The Japanese 

ri67 



Marriage," and he is on this trip collecting material for 
another book to be out next October, published by the 
Lippincotts, whether a romance or a book of travel I 
did not learn. He is to remain here in Cairo until April 
and will prepare his book here. 

Another interesting character was Carl von Faber, 
the founder of the great pencil manufactory. He has 
retired from the business now, although he holds a con- 
trolling interest in it. He is also one of the largest 
stockholders in the Hamburg American S. S. Company. 
I will give you briefly some of the interesting things he 
told me in the smoking saloon yesterday while we were 
describing circles in the river. The pencil company turns 
out 500 million pencils a year; they own large tracts of 
timber in the U. S. ; on this land the cedar is but a small 
per cent, of the total growth so they sell the other tim- 
ber, oak, chestnut, etc., to a firm in Hamburg, so that 
their cedar costs them nothing. Their works are in 
Brooklyn and near Munich. They work 800 men in 
Brooklyn and some ten times as many in Munich. Labor 
is so high in the U. S. that the business there only nets 
them about 5 per cent., while in Bavaria it pays three to 
four times as much. They would not keep up their 
works in the States were it not that they wish to keep up 
their name and reputation in America. 

Mr. Faber was the German Government Conmiis- 
sioner to the World's Fairs in Chicago and St. Louis, 
and when in the U. S. for the St. Louis Fair called on 
the President in Washington and expressed himself 

168] 



about the great destruction of forest timber that was 
going on in the States, and was much pleased by the 
President's interest in the subject. Mr. F. said, " For 
present gain you are destroying the forests for which 
the coming generations will have to suffer. . . . Any 
true lover of his country will sacrifice everything for his 
country and you Americans if you love your country 
will not allow this great evil to continue, but do as we do 
in Germany, make every man who cuts down a tree plant 
a new one to take its place." F. got greatly excited and 
talked very forcibly and most interestingly. I have no 
doubt that Roosevelt was distinctly moved by the old 
man's eloquence. 

Finally we drifted to German politics, and I asked 
him if he had read the book of Hohenlohe; and this 
opened up the fountain of his suppressed wrath, and 
here is about what he had to say: Hohenlohe was a 
senile old man, just the one for Bismarck to handle as 
he wished, and for this reason Bismarck recommended 
to the old Emperor his appointment. That Hohenlohe 
was a very vain man and was always dilating on his own 
doings and wanted to be continually talked about. As 
for his story of the trouble between the present Emperor 
and Bismarck that resulted in Bismarck's retirement, 
he said he knew all about it. That prior to the old Em- 
peror's death when Bismarck would attend on His Maj- 
esty to have him look over and approve with his royal 
signature the State papers, the old Emperor would go 
oiF to sleep while Bismarck was reading the public 

[169 



papers and explaining them and then when he would 
waken he would say, " Oh! I don't want to be bothered 
with these things, get them all ready and I will sign the 
lot or whatever you want me to; " and once B. said to 
some friend, "When that young fellow (referring to 
the present Emperor of Germany) comes into power, 
which he will soon do, for his father has but a short 
time to live, he is going to make himself very active in 
affairs." And when he did come into power Bismarck 
retired to his country seat and young William sent word 
to him that he must come into Berlin and be on hand 
for consultations; and then Bismarck sent back word 
that he wasn't well enough to come into Berlin, and the 
King sent word that of course it could not be expected 
that the King should go out to the Prime Minister's 
house to see him, that he must come in and be at his post 
or else he must resign. Bismarck paid no attention to 
this for eight days and then the King took counsel of his 
Cabinet, and Bismarck heard of this and called on His 
Majesty and told him he had no right to speak to the 
other secretaries, that there was a law saying that the 
King must have his consultations with his Cabinet 
through the Prime Minister. " Well," says William, " if 
there is any such law you draw up another one repealing 
that and have it passed at once." This B. point blank 
refused to do and went away out to his country place. 

William waited eight days again so as to give the 
old Chancellor time to think it over and improve his 
manners, but when the eight days had passed William 

170] 



appeared at Bismarck's house or palace, dressed in full 
uniform of the General in Chief of the German Army, 
at 6 o'clock in the morning, and announced himself and 
demanded an immediate audience with the Chancellor. 
Bismarck was in bed but at once got up, hurried into his 
clothes, and presented himself. King William didn't 
let any grass grow under his feet, but said : 

" As your King I gave you orders, that under pre- 
tense of law you disregarded; now, sir, as General in 
Chief of the German Army I give you, an officer in my 
army, the order to have the law amended, and, by God ! 
you want to do it and do it quick or I'll have you court- 
martialed and disgracefully discharged. I want you to 
understand that I am not to be trifled with another day, 
and that's not all. You think you are the power in 
Germany. You may have been, but from the day I took 
my oath of office I am King, by God! can you under- 
stand that? and now, sir, I want your resignation or you 
will be discharged without it. I am the man who is head 
now." 

And this closed Act I. William ordered another 
member of his Cabinet to draw up a law making him 
supreme and they passed it. Bismarck retired, and the 
German Government has survived the blow. Bismarck's 
own son. Count Herbert, told this to Von Faber, and 
he said he knew it was a true story of the afl'air. He 
also said that Bismarck was a great man, but in this he 
was a great fool, and his very best friends felt that he 

had made the mistake of his life. I wish I could describe 

ri7i 



this whole interview as it occurred, for Mr. Faber gave 
it the dramatic touch that this lacks. Faber is an inter- 
esting character and is going to be here (at Shepheard's) 
for two or three weeks, and I am looking forward with 
interest to some further talks with him. 

This morning I was much pleased to meet several 
Americans; Gov. W. H. Upham and Dr. Richardson, 
who was pastor of St. James Church, and they intro- 
duced several others who were fellow-passengers on the 
Atlantic. Upham invited me up to lunch with him to- 
day and I there met his wife and we had a very pleasant 
visit. They are also to be here for some weeks. After 
lunch to-day we came out into the lobby and I saw a very 
familiar face and at once decided it was Hall Caine's. 
I knew him from his pictures so frequently seen in the 
magazines. There is no mistaking him. 

I am very sorry to say Egypt is not keeping up her 
reputation. It was raining yesterday when I got here 
and it has rained all day at intervals, and a cold north 
wind has been blowing a gale, so that I have remained in 
doors, barring the Upham lunch. I am sorry that I left 
Assuan and Luxor if this beastly weather is to con- 
tinue. The oldest residents have never seen such weather 
as this before. The thermometer has been down to 50 
degrees to-day, which with the dampness and no heat in 
the rooms makes it anything but agreeable. Dukes, 
duchesses, counts, lords, and all that sort of people are 
so thick that they have really grown quite commonplace. 
There is a Captain Collins who married Lady Eveline, 

172] 



youngest daughter of the Duke of Bedford, both of 
whom (the Collinses) are very flashy and common. She 
strides around the halls and lobbies puffing cigarettes 
and holding her head so high that decent people laugh 
at her. And then there is a Captain somebody of the 
Royal Cavalry who is on his wedding trip with a foolish, 
doll-Hke, thin, willowy creature, both of whom suck their 
soup out of the end of their spoons and bite their bread 
— and a Russian Count and his pretty wife, who behave 
themselves and put on no airs. Oh! how soon you can 
tell good blood " to the manner born." Shepheard's is 
crowded, the great halls and lobbies are full, and it is 
an interesting thing to sit after dinner and watch the 
play go on. I shall hope that this letter will not be 
altogether without interest to you even if it has strung 
itself out unwarrantably — but the dismal outside has 
made it pardonable at least in my eyes to hold you for 
this long little talk on the " passing show." I am now 
beginning to count the weeks between this and a sight 
of all your dear faces. 



[173 



XXXIV 

Cairo, February 2. 

The past week has gone quickly. There is so much 
going on in the streets and in the great halls and lobbies 
of this big hotel that some way the time flies and the day 
has gone before you know it. This past week I have 
given up mostly to the study of the old city. Cairo lies 
on the level plateau between the bluffs on the east and 
the Nile on the west (approximately 5 miles in width). 
The Ezbekiyeh — a little park, of 20 acres only — rather 
marks the western limits of the old city, and between that 
and the river are found the wider streets and pavements 
and the more modern business houses and residences. 

The Ezbekiyeh was named after a famous general. 
Emir Ezbek. A mosque was erected here in honor of 
his victories in 1495, and in 1870 the park was laid out 
by M. Barillet, the Chief Gardener of Paris. It con- 
tains a theatre, small lake, a great variety of rare and 
beautiful trees and shrubs, with an artificial mound with 
a spiral walk leading to the summit, with a belvedere and 
grotto and a log building on top from which a fine view 
of the park is obtained. There are several cafes, and the 
band plays here in the afternoon from 3 to 5. There 
are four gates of entrance where there are turnstiles 
and a charge of 2^/2 cents or half a piastre is charged 
for admittance. This may strike an American as pecu- 
liar, as parks are generally open to the public free with 
us — but this would not do here, as the place would be 

174] 



crowded with Arabs lying all over the ground. As it is 
the small fee keeps them out. 

The improvement in widening the streets and side- 
walks is already extending to the old part of the city, 
and new and modern buildings penetrate down the 
Muski for a block or two, and threaten to invade it 
further in the near future. The Muski begins just out- 
side the park and runs pretty nearly in a direct line east 
for over a mile to the foot of the bluif where the Tombs 
of the Caliphs are found. It is the main business street 
of old Cairo and is about 25 feet wide with sidewalks 1^^ 
to 2^ feet wide raised about six inches above the street, 
and is built up solidly the entire length with one- and 
two-story buildings, little shops on the ground floor — 
generally with large show-rooms in the rear, of the 
larger dealers. Every little ways there are narrow alleys 
leading off at right angles, and on these are found the 
famous bazaars of all the different industries, and these 
are mostly confined to one particular branch. There 
is one where shoes are exclusively made, another of gold 
and silver workers, another of rugs, another of tents, 
another of brass workers, and so on, every branch having 
its own bazaar. The merchants stand at the doors and 
invite the passers-by to come in and take a look. " Do 
not ask you to buy, only come in and look," they say; 
but you are more than human if you get out of the 
bazaar district without having parted with some of your 
dinars. 

The University here, the Gamia el-Azhar (the 

[175 



blooming) , is the most important monument of the Fati- 
mite period. It was founded as a University in 988, 
A.D.jhas about 9000 regular students. You enter a door 
with a fine arch overhead — at the entrance an Arab ties 
on your feet big leather slippers so that your plebeian 
shoes won't profane the holy floor. You pay P. T. 2, 
which means 2 piastres (ten cents), and a guide accom- 
panies you into a large open court — paved as to floor, 
with covered arcades running around the four sides, the 
centre space being without roof — and here squatted on 
the floor are hundreds of men and boys reading and 
writing, learning the Koran by heart. From this court, 
which is some 300 feet square, you pass through arch- 
ways into other courts, filled as the first, with men and 
boys all reading and writing ; there are no desks, no seats, 
and you will come across a line of some twenty or thirty 
all in a row on their knees repeating the Koran and 
salaaming to the floor in regular cadence. They are sup- 
posed to learn the Koran so as to repeat it from memory 
after first learning the Arabic grammar, then religious 
science, then the Laws, The term of study is from four 
to six years. There are 319 teachers who lecture in the 
morning, from a small table on which they squat; and 
when a fellow has gotten to the point where he can 
answer any question propounded by the Professor then 
he is allowed to squat on a table and do his stunt in the 
lecture business. The area of the main sanctuary or 
study court is 3600 square yards. Around on the sides 
of these various courts are rooms for the students to 

176] 



sleep in and cases for holding the books. There is no 
charge for tuition. 

Before I forget it, and before going further, I must 
tell you of my great surprise, in going down one of these 
dirty, impaved, dark little alleys. I came to the bazaar 
of the jewelers and here in their miserable little shops I 
saw the most magnificent display of gems and settings 
I ever saw, necklaces worth hundreds of thousands of 
dollars, jewels for the hair, rings, every conceivable orna- 
ment worked with admirable skill and richness. How 
in the world they can make, and, more extraordinary, 
how they can sell immensely costly and beautiful things 
in such miserable surroundings is beyond my 
imagination. 

From the University I went through other and yet 
dirtier and more odorous lanes and came to the Gamia 
el-Muayyad, a great mosque built in 1422, with massive 
bronze doors, the finest in the city. It is being restored 
in the most gorgeous fashion with mosaics in marble 
and precious stones, inlaid with mother of pearl, and 
the ceilings in exquisitely carved cedar. Many of the 
ceilings of these mosques are most beautifully carved and 
then painted in fresh and glowing colors which give 
great eiFect to the lofty roofs. To-day I have been over 
to the " Ghezireh Palace " which was, as you know, built 
for the temporary sojourn of the Empress Eugenie at 
the opening of the Suez Canal. Now it is turned into a 
high-class hotel, considered the most exclusive in the city. 
It is run by the same company who operate Shepheards, 

[177 



and you can take a ticket from the latter (if you are a 
guest) and go over and lunch at the former without 
extra charge. This is what I did and after my cigar I 
took a cab and drove out some two and a half miles on 
the road to the Pyramids, to the Zoo. This is a fine 
affair; large grounds, beautifully laid out and full of 
tropical and luxuriant foliage, with a large collection of 
animals, birds, snakes, etc. There are three enormous 
giraffes there, by far the largest I have ever seen ; and I 
was interested in one animal that seemed to be a cross be- 
tween a goat and a deer, a very handsome and well-pro- 
portioned beast, about three and a half times larger than 
the ordinary sheep and of a rich deep brown color. It 
was presented to the Gardens by Gen. Kitchener, who 
found it near Assuan when he was extending the rail- 
way south to Khartum. It had a Latin name that I 
didn't try to remember. 

The first part of last week was very cold and damp 
and I didn't do much except to get out each day and 
have a good walk for exercise. To-day and Friday and 
Saturday were fine days, and this week I shall visit the 
Pyramids and the Sphinx and the great museum again ; 
and this reminds me that I spent Thursday morning in 
the Arabian Museum, which is an entirely different 
affair from the Cairo Museum. This is for collecting 
and preserving things of all sorts which are distinctly 
Arabic as distinguished from Egyptian. There is a 
large and most valuable collection of illustrated Korans, 
some fine specimens of ancient bindings, copies of books, 

178] 



I 



written centuries ago contemporary with the " Arabian 
Nights' Entertainments " ; and I saw titles of books that 
I have heard mentioned and seen quotations from that 
hitherto were myths to me, but hereafter realities. Then 
there were all sorts of carvings in stone, wood, bronze, 
and iron. These are all in wonderfully designed geo- 
metrical figures. In this sort of work, this intricate pat- 
tern-work, I mean, the Arabs seemed to have reached the 
very limit. I tried to sketch one or two of them but got 
hopelessly mixed on them. They make cabinets, doors, 
boxes, chests, etc., that are gems of art. I only wish I 
could take home a lot of them. Then there are splendid 
specimens of gold and silver inlaid work and these all 
covered with the intricate tracery. 



[179 



XXXV 

Cairo, February 6. 

This morning there was a brisk northwester, but we 
took carriages and drove to the gate of the Citadel, to 
which point we had sent donkeys; we mounted these 
here and rode up the small hill, passing the so-called 
Joseph's Well, and then down, crossing by a bridge the 
railway hne to Heluan where it passes through the solid 
rock in a channel 60 or 70 feet in depth. It seems 
strange that they did not tunnel here, but perhaps they 
had abundant use for the stone. Ascending the Mo- 
kattam Hills, from here we had excellent views of the 
tremendous quarries which have been worked almost 
continually since the days of the pyramid builders. No 
one can get the least accurate idea of the enormity of 
these immense excavations unless they have seen them. 
They are several hundred feet in depth, with perpendicu- 
lar faces through solid limestone which lies in a seamless 
mass from the summit clear down to the great depths 
that are at present being worked. All of the stone for 
all of the pyramids was taken from here, embracing 
millions of cubic yards, too vast to be conceived of by the 
hmnan mind. To me these quarries were one of the 
most interesting and impressive sights in or about Cairo, 
easily second to the pyramids themselves. They estab- 
lish the fact that no earthquakes have ever disturbed 
them. What a wonderful tale their history would unfold. 



180] 



February 7. 

To-day we have been with the Lockwoods through 
Old Cairo on donkeys, visiting one or two old mosques 
and Coptic churches. It is an ever interesting kaleido- 
scope, these old streets thronged as they are with every 
nationality and costume, all sorts of things going on, 
and with din and noise enough to drive one crazy, and 
over and above all the cry for baksheesh rings clear and 
distinct. 

The mosque Gamia Ibn Tulun is the oldest in Cairo, 
built in 876 and 878 A. D. It occupies an area of 
30,720 square yards. It is of the same design as the 
Kaaba at Mecca, but without columns. A Christian 
prisoner in return for his release built the entire edifice 
out of new material. The construction is of brick cov- 
ered with stucco, the ornamentation is made by carvings 
both on stucco and wood. The frieze in the corridors 
surrounding the court is of wood brought from Mount 
Ararat and taken from Noah's Ark. I have never heard 
this statement questioned by Noah or any of his descend- 
ants. There are five wide aisles three hundred feet long 
with columns carrying the flat roof, and on the three 
sides are three aisles; the columns are massive and 
square and are connected by arches on a longitudinal 
hne. The interior court is 300 feet square; in the centre 
stands a dome-topped fountain and on the further side 
from the entrance just beyond the outer wall rises the 
minaret, built of stone, and peculiar in being square in 
its lower section and round above. It is worth while to 

[181 



mount to the top of it, for there you get a better and 
more extensive view of the city and the surrounding 
country than from any point I have visited. This 
mosque is no longer used as a place of worship, I suppose 
for the reason that it has no covered or enclosed 
sanctuary. 

Wednesday, February 7. 

I leave here to-morrow and before doing so I must 
set down my impressions and conclusions as to the Arabs 
or natives of Egypt. The men are large physically, with 
well-shaped heads and bodies; they are very temperate. 
In my stay of over a month here in Cairo and of more 
than a month in Assuan and Luxor I have never seen 
a native under the influence of alcohol in the slightest 
degree. They are good-natured, glad to serve if you 
are good to them, honest and obliging ; very grateful for 
kindness and good treatment, quick to learn, nimble and 
active, and make the best of servants. I have known 
them only to Hke them; they are kind and tender to 
their women and children ; they are mostly a fine-looking 
set of men and make excellent soldiers and policemen 
and have good executive ability. Thomas Cook & Son 
and all business men, such as bankers, merchants, etc., 
employ them generally in all sorts of positions, and they 
are trusted and treated as equals. They run the post- 
offices and locomotives ; they are in throngs every^svhere, 
and yet you never see or hear of a riot ; they are a law- 
abiding people and possess a fund of quiet humor ; and 
if you are green and verdant, as most visitors are at first, 

182] 



they let your gibes and jokes pass as of the ignorant and 
ill-bred. They ask for baksheesh on all occasions, not 
so much to beg as to satisfy your inquisitive curiosity 
as to when the request will be forthcoming. They are 
thankful for a smile, and a half of a piastre raises them 
to the rank of millionaires. 



[183 



XXXVI 

Cairo, February 8, 

Last Monday, February 3, was the Egyptian 
Fourth of July and was much like our Fourth, only 
they are civilized enough over here to prohibit firecrack- 
ers and all that sort of nonsense, nuisance, and danger. 
Why on earth " the most civilized people in the world " 
should tolerate what we do in that line, viz., burn up 
about $250,000 worth of property and kill about a thou- 
sand people each year, for which there is no equivalent, 
is more than any man can find out. 

Here business was generally suspended. The Khe- 
dive had receptions all day and his published list read 
hke a timetable on the railway: 10 o'clock he received 
the officers of his staff; 10: 30 his cabinet ministers; 11 
the different corps, etc. The entire day was parcelled 
off, some of it into fifteen-minute divisions. You were 
expected to be on hand at the stroke of the clock, and 
also you were expected to get through your politenesses 
and get out as promptly on time. There was no oppor- 
tunity for any long-winded display of " gab," nor could 
any female with a repertoire of idiotic compliments have 
a chance to fire off her eloquence. The young person, 
who is " God anointed " in the yellow man's country, is 
quite a business-like fellow and doesn't cultivate people 
who run to words altogether. I should like to see some of 
our W. C. T. U., S. M.'s, or other talking folks of the 
female persuasion interviewing this hustling chap; I 

184] 



think they would come out of the melee with their hats 
down over one eye and their toilets disarranged. I got 
a glimpse of H. R. H. during the day. He went to the 
races in the late afternoon. He always goes out to those 
and so does everyone else who can raise the piastres. 
Now, after writing all the above about Fourth of July 
I look in my guide-book and behold it is New Year's day 
here. Well it doesn't matter. It was a big day and 
everybody tried to enjoy himself, and the bands all 
played and so did everybody else. 

Tuesday was my great day I set it apart to spend 
with the Sphinx and the Pyramids, and I did just that. 
I drove out to the further end of the great Nile bridge 
and then got on to the train, and in a forty-five minute 
ride landed at the Meena House and took a donkey and 
rode up the long winding hill road and came abreast of 
the biggest thing in the world, the " Gizeh Pyramid " ; 
my little book on " Egypt " gives you the exact size of 
it, but I don't suppose any one of you ever stopped to 
think what an enormous pile of rock it is. Our city 
blocks are generally 300 feet on each side with a 60 feet 
street on each side, now take four full blocks, streets and 
all, and put up a building covering every inch of the 
ground and build it forty-five stories high of 10-foot 
ceilings, and you get a fair idea of it. One hundred 
thousand men worked three months in each year at it 
for twenty years and then it wasn't altogether finished. 
Old Cheops had some common sense along with his as- 
piring ambition, for he only worked those 100,000 Arabs 

[185 



during the portion of the year when they were not re- 
quired to farm it. He also believed in keeping every- 
body busy, and that, all the time. They plowed, and 
hoed, and reaped, and threshed, and stored, besides 
working the shaduf between times. New Year's or the 
Fourth of July never interfered with his ideas of the 
rights of men to work, whether they would or not. The 
stones are about as thick as it is from the ground to the 
first button below the collar of my coat. I know, for I 
got up against one and marked the place, but since then 
I have neglected to measure myself over that part of my 
anatomy so I can't give you any closer figures. If the 
coat doesn't wear out before I get home I will get John 
Nelson to stand his horse measure up against me and 
read it off; remind me of this when I return. Don't 
imagine there is anything of interest about the pyramids 
except the size, for there isn't. 

I wouldn't have a pjnramid myself if anyone offered 
to give me one, but the thing that is full of interest, that 
is worth coming here to see, that possesses a fascination 
you can't explain and which yet has an overpowering 
hold on you, no matter how you try to throw it off, that 
lives fresh in your mental vision, and that haunts your 
dreams, is the Sphinx. The poor, dumb face has suf- 
fered terrible mutilation. The nose has been worked 
as a quarry, the cheeks are torn and disfigured, one of 
the ears is half torn off; but in spite of all these disfig- 
urements there is a look in the eyes, a smile on the lips, 
and you stand spellbound before the lofty majesty of 
that fine face, and your heart warms in the beneficence 

186] 



of that indescribable smile. Who first drew the hnes for 
the sculptor's chisel, who first thought of creating this 
great crouching lion and completing the conception with 
a human head of such colossal proportions, and then 
putting the sorrow and the joys of the whole world into 
the rough texture of limestone and giving it the sen- 
suous look that has made it alive, even after the thou- 
sands of years that have rolled over it, that has lived 
for all these years a masterpiece, and always will so live, 
I don't know; but he ranks, outranks, Shakespeare and 
Praxiteles. The body of the creature is somewhere about 
187 feet in length. The distance from the top of the 
head to the base on which the paws rest is about sixty- 
six feet; the proportions of this crouching lion are all 
perfect. You walk around it; you can climb on top of 
its back and walk from the big haunches up to the back 
of the neck ; you can stand in front of it on a hillock of 
sand and bring your face nearly on a level with its eyes. 
The mouth is seven and one-half feet in width, the nose, 
forehead, and chin proportionately large, and after you 
have read all of this in your guide-book and checked it 
off you gaze into that face and the mutilations all disap- 
pear. The gigantic features lose their prominence and 
all at once, as if waking from a dream, the human soul 
of the thing gazes at you from a deep serenity; and the 
infinite beauty of the smile dwelling in those eyes and 
resting on those lips overwhelms you with a feeling that 
you never felt before, will never feel again, and can 
never, never forget. Camera, brush, and pen have all 
tried in vain to reproduce the smile on Da Vinci's Mona 

[187 



Lisa, the tragic sorrow of Thorwaldsen's Lion of Lu- 
cerne, the majestic gaze of Cheops' Sphinx, but it can 
never be done. The artist's soul entered into the base 
material and nothing but destruction can take the one 
immortal thing from it. 

The Sphinx lies amidst the hills of light sand on the 
edge of the Lybian Desert, and the winds sift the sands 
to and fro over the creature, and it is almost impossible 
to keep it from being again buried out of sight. Con- 
stant work would be required and the Government does 
not give it, consequently the creature is partially buried 
at this time. Fancy a dog Ijdng down with his two fore- 
paws stretched out in front and those covered completely 
with sand, and that brought up so you cannot see where 
the legs begin, and you have the figure as it now lies in 
the sand. There is said to be an altar between its fore- 
paws — but there is none in sight. I have perhaps given 
too much space to my views about the Sphinx, but when 
you come to see it, which I trust you may all sometime 
do, you will excuse the exuberance of my fancy. 

This week I have had the pleasure of meeting here 
some old friends, Mr. L., wife, and sister, of San An- 
tonio, Mr. A. of Chicago, the well-known antiquarian, 
and Gen. W. of Paris, whom I knew when we lived in 
Peoria. I am now arranging to go to Marseilles and 
Nice a week from Thursday next, where I shall be until 
March 5, and then visit Nimes and other adjacent towns 
and reach Paris the 15th of March, and be there until 
I sail for home, doing the Chateau meantime and going 
to Rheims, Mount St. Michel, etc. 

188] 



XXXVII 

Nice, February IS. 

It was so damp and cold at Cairo that on Thursday- 
last I left and went to Alexandria and took the English 
Co.'s new ship Cairo and reached Naples Saturday even- 
ing at 11 o'clock, too late to go on shore, and left there 
Sunday at 4 a.m. The trip from Alexandria to Naples 
was over smooth water and the ship was fresh and clean 
and very steady. When we left Naples a strong N. W. 
gale began, and by Sunday evening was blowing " great 
guns," as the sailormen say ; but we did not feel it very 
much until about 9 p.m., when we had passed the Straits 
of Bonifaceo, where we struck tremendous seas; and 
from that until after we had crossed the Gulf of Lyons 
we were rolling and pitching, and had the screws out of 
water, which made our ship cry out in her agony I can 
assure you, and there was not much sleep before day- 
light. I don't remember having passed such a disagree- 
able night since the one Norton and I enjoyed on the 
Germanic in February many years ago on my first trip 
over the North Atlantic. Our ship was very long. I 
can't give actual dimensions, but the promenade deck, 
which we walked, was 321 feet in length, and that was 
about half the total length; and our bows would move 
through an arc of what seemed to me to be at least fifty 
feet ; and when her tail would go up in the air the spin- 
ning turbines would make her shake hke a water spaniel 
when he jumps out of a cold bath. It wasn't agreeable, 
to say the least. 

[189 



We reached Marseilles at 10: 30 a.m. yesterday and 
were only detained at the customs for about ten minutes. 
They went through my grip and checked the rest; and 
I took a voiture and drove up to the Art Museum and 
saw two very good Corots and a most interesting piece 
of statuary called " The Foolish Virgins," and a 
"nude" after the style of "Bouguereau" — a young girl 
lying on a bit of green, with exquisite flesh coloring — 
but the artist's name I don't remember, only it was not 
" Roll," although quite good enough to be. Then I 
walked back to the *' Hotel de la Paris," got a good 
lunch, and strolled about until 4, and then took the 
" Rapide " and reached here at 8: 05 last evening and 
came at once to the new hotel just opened, the " Ma- 
jestic Palace," and found delightful quarters; nice room 
with a bath and steam heat, southern exposure, and most 
appetizing food, including fine coffee, which is scarce 
over here but a rest to the soul when found. 

On my trip from Alexandria I found in the ship's 
library under the head of " Theological Works " Mark 
Twain's *' Christian Science " — that is about as good a 
thing as I have met with amongst " English curiosities." 
I am going to write Mr. Samuel L. Clemens and tell 
him of the honor conferred. I also want to tell Kathleen 
to buy a book written by Mr. Sladen and Miss Lorimer 
called " More Queer Things About Japan," and she 
will find it, I think, one of the most entertaining books 
she has read. There is another by the same authors, 
" Queer Things About Japan," which I haven't seen, 

190] 



but if she will buy it I will read it when I return. I had 
the great pleasure of making the acquaintance of both 
of these people on the Nile and liked them very much 
and hope to see them in America. They spent three 
years in Japan preparing these books. 

The weather here is sunny and bright and warmer 
and much dryer than in Cairo. Egypt was not up to 
the past records this winter and Pasadena beats it " all 
hollow." Speaking of Cairo reminds me that I wish to 
devote a Httle space to the animal called " Port yea " 
(portier), who exists only in foreign countries, but he 
is to be found in every hotel from St. Petersburg to the 
Cape of Good Hope. There are portiers and portiers, 
two distinct classes. One greets you with welcoming 
eyes as you rise upon his horizon and with soft voice and 
pleasant way, absolutely indescribable and yet so real, 
bids you enter the home he has especially prepared for 
you, where you will find every comfort awaiting you; 
during your stay he anticipates your every wish, sug- 
gests in an unobtrusive way ideas making for your pleas- 
ure, and when you leave the gracious presence of this 
guide, philosopher, and friend, he bids you " God speed," 
" bon voyage," and the hope that he may see you soon 
again. The other sort, this one does not see you unless 
you arrive with a tooting auto; if you happen to be 
travelling with good Aunt Susan with a shawl and a hat 
somewhat awry, he nearly runs over you as he plunges 
down to greet " Milord." To all your inquiries he 
answers, if at all, by a short " Yes," or " No," without 

[191 



reference to the almighty truth. He never suggests and 
invariably ignores. He imagines he owns the earth and 
looks upon you as a cumberer of the ground. When 
upon your departure you give him the unearned ducats 
that you have won by patient toil, he smiles in contempt, 
at least behind your back, and doesn't even touch his cap 
as you go forth. Of the first class I commend to you 
the portier of the Grand Hotel, Naples, and of the 
*' Majestic Palace " in Nice, and at the same time beg 
you note the stupendous asses that reign in the Hotel 
Shepheard, Cairo. 

When I first left that hotel on going up the Nile, I 
gave to the portier then on duty a sovereign, with the 
request that he divide it with his associate ; and he at once 
called out in a loud voice to him so that the hall full of 
visitors could all hear, " This gentleman has left this," 
holding the little coin up between his thumb and finger, 
" to be divided between us." Great scorn in his pro- 
nunciation of " divided." I thereupon placed a little rod 
in pickle for the two gents and when I left last week I 
went up to their counter and said in an equally clear and 
loud voice, handing him two five-franc pieces, " Please 
divide these between yourself and your colaborer in the 
field of baksheesh," and I got into the bus. He was as 
cold as ice just then but when I looked back as we swung 
around the corner his dull brain had somehow received 
an impression and his temperature had gone up at least 
to 205° Fahrenheit, and I wiped out the score. 



192] 



XXXVIII 

Nick, February 20. 

Yesterday I took the tram for Monte Carlo ; the 
line follows the shore above the railway and presents fine 
views of the sea and of the mountain and the many beau- 
tiful villas built along the mountain side. It is much 
the better way to go between the two points ; it takes one 
and a half hours but is not tiresome. Arriving at Monte 
Carlo I took lunch at the Hotel Paris, where they are 
robbers of the first class. They charged me sixty cents 
for a small glass of whisky and one dollar for one por- 
tion of spinach, and the rest of my order in proportion, 
but I got even with the town by going over to the 
Casino ; I put a five-franc piece on number 19 on the first 
table and I had no more than done so before the croupier 
shoved 175 francs in gold over to me as the result of 
my venture in gambling on the green. Then as I had 
three separate five- franc pieces I put one on the centre 
column and lost, next played one on 27 and 28 crossing 
the table and won ten francs. This putting me ahead 
again I put two five-franc pieces on the black and 
doubled, then two on the red and lost, and then quit for 
the day. I enjoyed watching the other players more 
than taking chances on the whims of the little ball. 

The days pass very rapidly walking on the Prome- 
nade des Anglais, the broad pavement fronting on the 
sea for over a mile, which is the favorite occupation for 
the visitors. During the hours of sunshine there are 

[193 



always hundreds of people taking their constitutionals 
here, and the scene is one of gaiety and fashion. There 
are some stunning effects in toilettes to be seen here. 
Then there are the two casinos with their fine orchestras 
and large roulette tables going with crowds about them. 
And so walking, listening, and taking chances with one's 
spare francs the days pass without events worth 
chronicling. 



194] 



XXXIX 

Nice, Sunday, February 23. 

I WROTE you last Tuesday, the day after I reached 
here. The weather has been perfect ever since. The 
city is full of visitors coming here for the Carnival, 
which was opened by the arrival of the King of the 
Carnival last Thursday night, since which time there has 
been nothing doing excepting in the way of prepara- 
tions for the Grand Parade, which comes off this after- 
noon. The principal streets are spanned with arches, 
with electric lights, flags, and the general display of the 
colors of the Festa, yellow and mauve. This festival is 
to last until next Sunday midnight, when the town will 
go wild and the mob become turbulent. Everyone in 
the procession on that last night must wear masks, and 
the colors in dress and hats will be required. I don't 
expect to take any part in the closing obsequies. It was 
so chilly last Thursday that I did not venture out and 
only saw the procession as it crossed the street just be- 
low my hotel; but I am going to see it this afternoon, 
when it wiU be at its best. I will send you a set of 
postals by mail and you can send them around, they give 
you a very fair idea of the show. 

This town has grown all out of my recollections. 
There are more and larger hotels here than in any place 
I have ever been. This house, the " Majestic Palace," 
isn't completed yet, but they opened it last Thursday a 
week, and it is fuU now. It has 600 bedrooms, 250 bath- 

[195 



rooms, steam heat, cold and hot water in every room; 
and the whole house, halls and everywhere are comfort- 
ably warm. The coffee is as good as we get at home, 
and the service is excellent. It is run by a Swiss and, 
as you know, they are the best hotel keepers in the world. 
There is nothing wanting. The grounds are being 
graded and planted, and when all is finished it will be a 
most imposing, convenient, and up-to-date house. 

Monday, February 24. 

Yesterday after lunch I took a carriage and drove 
down town and got in the line of carriages that went in 
the opposite direction to the Carnival Procession so as 
to see the whole show. The route lay along the Avenue 
de la Gare, which is the longest, widest, and straightest 
street in the city, extending from the Place de Massena 
to the Railway Station, some three-quarters of a mile. 
This avenue was spanned by arches, dotted with electric 
lights, and the sides were decorated by great festoons of 
colored trappings; all the buildings were draped with 
flags and bunting and the avenue was crowded with 
thousands of revellers and the ordinary populace ; bands 
were stationed at small intervals, and were also in num- 
bers amongst the moving throng. The revellers were 
mostly masked and wore all sorts of costumes and were 
dancing and singing, and nearly everyone carried a bag 
of paper confetti which was thrown at the passers-by, the 
occupants of carriages getting the majority of it. I 
know that my clothes and even my shoes were full of it 

196] 



when I got back to the hotel. I drove up and down the 
hne twice and then went back to my room. After din- 
ner, about half past eight, I walked down to the Avenue 
to get a sight of the street when illuminated, and was 
well repaid, as it was a most beautiful sight. The colors, 
green, mauve, and yellow, make a lovely combination, 
and the frolic was at its height. I only stayed a few 
minutes. It seemed as if every conceivable thing had 
been used in the get-up of the masqueraders. There 
were men and women ten and fifteen feet tall ; heads as 
big as a barrel, with enormous wigs of rope ; floats thirty 
feet high, representing great beasts, dragons, monsters 
of all kinds. I can't begin to tell you of all the wonder- 
fully skilful devices. The postals will show you some 
of them. 

I notice one thing here, and that is the absence of 
the English. They throng the lines of travel in Italy, 
Switzerland, and Egypt, but they are not in such vulgar 
evidence in France, at least here. I understand that in 
Cannes they are more numerous. It is not to be won- 
dered at. They are distinctly at the other end from the 
French. In one of my former letters I wrote of the 
English from out the bitterness of my heart, provoked 
thereto by the presence of so many of the undesirable 
citizens of the Isle; let me expiate some of that by re- 
lating a few facts. The English do not see much in our 
American wit, nor in the persiflage of the French. They 
imagine that they are the particularly " chosen ones." 
They have all the traits which irritate and try us, but 

[197 



they do things and they do them well. The French 
built the Suez Canal and it was a losing proposition. 
England sent her commerce around the Cape. Disraeli 
bought up the French shares at his own price and turned 
England's ships through the Canal, and dividends on 
Suez stock rose to 9 per cent., and the Disraeli shares are 
worth some seven or eight times what they cost. France 
built the barrage below Cairo to irrigate the Delta ; when 
she had spent seven millions and had erected above the 
water a most imposing and magnificent reproduction of 
a gigantic medieval castle, with battlemented towers, 
drawbridges, portcullises, etc., they invited the whole 
world to see their exploit; and lo and behold! they had 
built on the shifting sands and when the great gates 
were closed their thing of grandeur began to tumble and 
they had to let the water go, and the thing was pro- 
nounced a failure. Lord Cromer, " English man of 
affairs," " savior of Egypt," took a look, called in one 
of his bonny Scotch engineers, " Moncrief." He put 
on his thinking-cap, built coffer-dams all around the con- 
cern, suspended the masonry in the air while he got un- 
der the same, and went down to the rock and started his 
foundations and built up to the Frenchman's structure, 
and then the Scotchman crawled out, and shut up his 
gates. He had spent some millions but he had made a 
good substantial thing of the Frenchman's architectural 
fizzle ; and reclaimed the thousands of acres of the Delta 
which were worth hundreds of millions to Egypt, and 
this without the blowing of horns or " feu de joie " what- 

198] 



ever; and while I am about it exploiting the English 
let me rehearse something not so pleasing to our own 
egotism. The English ventured into unknown and un- 
trodden realms of engineering and threw across the 
Firth of Forth a marvellous structure, two spans of 
1710 feet each, a veritable wonder of the world. It stood 
the sti;ains of the cyclonic winds that swept down 
through the hills while its great arms were reaching 
across the water that was over a hundred feet in depth; 
it stood the weight of the great central span that was 
flung across from arch end to arch end, and it stands to- 
day while hundreds of trains cross it in both directions, 
a credit to English engineers. We Americans in our 
foolishness of heart said we would build a greater thing 
and so added a few undesirable feet to " Baker's 
Miracle," and called on the world to witness " Young 
America " doing a greater stunt, and oh! to our sorrow, 
to our woeful downfall, to our humiliation, the thing fell 
down before half finished and carried with it to their 
untimely end many a score of innocent men who had 
put their trust in American mathematics and Yankee 
honesty. When I think of this, then I take back much 
I have said as to the English and walk in dust and ashes 
in the Valley of Humiliation. I came to the end of this 
sheet so suddenly that it nearly took my breath away, but 
I guess you will be glad, as I was fast getting onto the 
seat of renunciation, and might have done my country 
wrong, although it will take years to wdpe out the stain 
of the St. Lawrence fiasco. 

[199 



XL 



Nice, February 28. 

I AM beginning this letter a little ahead of time that 
I may tell you of the Flower Parade and Battle of 
Flowers that came off yesterday, which is one of the 
regular annual festivities. They have funny ways over 
here, I am not sure but that we might copy some of 
them. The French don't go into things without making 
them pay, at least the cost. Their exhibitions are always 
financial successes. With us they are great drafts on a 
few liberal men's pockets. One had to pay fifteen francs 
for the privilege to drive in the parade, besides having 
to decorate his carriage to the acceptance of the com- 
mittee. How many of our people would pay for doing 
so? This affair took place on the Promenade des An- 
glais which is the wide street skirting the sea-shore in 
front of the city. The committee had put up a sort of 
wire and lath fence on both sides of a strip in the centre 
of the street that was not over thirty feet wide, and out- 
side of these temporaiy fences seats were built rising 
like those of an amphitheatre, one above the other and 
extending a long ways, and on the remainder of the 
distance chairs and benches were placed. These seats 
were sold for from two francs up to thirty, according 
to location, and every place was filled. You can imagine 
that the treasury of the Fete Committee was not lean. 
As I said, the French know how to get money out of 
fun. 



The procession started punctually at two o'clock 
P.M., on the firing of a cannon; with us it would have 
started after everyone was tired out waiting for it — 
punctuality is a French virtue. They set a time for a 
thing to be done, if you are in it you must be there, if 
you are not you learn something that will be of use to 
you the rest of your life. You have to pay just the same, 
but you don't realize in the " profit." " See? '' There 
were scores of carriages. Some of the prettiest were 
the ordinary street voitures, and it was noticeable the 
taste and luxury some of these cabmen displayed in 
dressing their carriages and horses. The drive was some 
three-quarters of a mile in length, and the procession 
was long enough to cover the complete line up and down, 
so that the carriages going on one side of the narrow 
fenced-in lane were continually passing the carriages 
going in the opposite direction. The occupants of the 
carriages all carried great baskets of flowers made up in 
small bouquets, and the thousands of spectators were 
also well supplied with the same ammunition. As the 
carriages passed along this was tossed back and forth, 
from carriage to carriage to a limited extent, but the 
main fun was between the carriage occupants and the 
folks on the sides. Here the air was full of flowers, and 
if a particularly fine turnout with handsome women 
came along, or if there was a striking toilet or a pretty 
face in the crowd, the battle raged fiercely in that 
vicinity. It was a very pretty sight and a very animated 
and exciting one. Many of the carriages had boys in 

[201 



attendance to pick up the bouquets that missed and fell 
in the street. The procession drove three times around 
the course. The mounted police kept all people out of 
the lane until the last turn and then the mob were let 
in, and they rushed in picking up the flowers which cov- 
ered the road and threw them indiscriminately in the 
faces of the others walking or into the carriages. It was 
a wild termination but everybody behaved well and all 
had a great afternoon of it. 

Fine bands of music were stationed along the route 
and continually furnished inspiring noises. In the even- 
ing a grand masked ball was given, and I heard a gentle- 
man and lady, that is, they pretended to be, discussing 
the matter in the tram-car this morning; the man said 
he got back to his room at 4 o'clock this morning and 
the female said she didn't get in until after 5. She said, 
" You know we had to have something to eat and 
(Jimmy, or Charlie, or Jack, whoever she said it was) 
invited us to supper, and we began with champagne 
cocktails and we had so on, and so on — I can't remember 
— and do you know it cost him 150 francs." She was 
a very pretty woman and I wondered how long she 
would last with that kind of a life. There are lots of 
very fast people here, and more automobiles than I have 
seen anywhere. They are, as a general thing, very ob- 
jectionable folks. They have such a superior air and 
talk so loud, a habit acquired by having to yell so much 
in the dust and noise ; and they stand about in the middle 
of doorways and in the centre of halls, and if you wish 

202] 



to pass you simply have to go around them as they never 
take the sHghtest notice of you ; and if there is anybody 
to listen they talk loud about " cylinders " and " petrol," 
" Panhard," and " Limousine " ; and laugh when they 
see you get into a tram or a voiture. But they are being 
declared a nuisance hereabouts for they have practically 
destroyed the attractions of the Corniche road, which 
used to be the finest drive in Europe and which drew 
crowds to the Riviera. Now the autos monopolize it, 
they throng it ; it is no more safe for carriages, and there 
was a time when the finest turnouts were there, four-in- 
hands and all that. Now you drive there at the peril of 
your life, and if you are not run into you are covered 
with dust and you inhale nothing but air filled with sand 
and made odorous with petrol. It's exasperating, and 
even the motorists are complaining of the nuisance they 
aid in creating. In the " Nice Daily " last week an 
owner of an auto came out in a tremendous screed about 
it and said hereafter he would leave his auto at home 
and ride in the cars in preference to undergoing the 
torture that he had to bear in driving from Nice to Rome. 
There is a singular state of aff*airs existing here just 
now. With thousands of unemployed all over the world, 
the laundries cannot get help enough to do the work, so 
that when you send out your soiled linen no one knows 
when it will reach you again. All the hotels here, and 
they are almost innumerable, are complaining of this 
serious condition. I am sure I don't know what the out- 
come will be, for laundries are quite as necessary as 

[303 



kitchens to the tourists. I am just now figuring to go 
to Marseilles the 9th and get an auto and visit Aix, 
Aries, Aigues-Mortes, Tarascon, and Nimes, winding 
up with Avignon ; and then take the train for Paris so as 
to reach the latter the 15th of March. I have seen some 
friends here whom I hope to induce to join me in this 
trip. I don't like an auto from choice, but it is the 
easiest and pleasantest way to see these several old 
Roman towns that lie so close together. After receipt 
of this letter you had all better address me care Thos. 
Cook & Son, Paris, as I shall be there and in the neigh- 
borhood after March 15 until I am ready to sail for 
home. Since reaching here, two weeks ago next Mon- 
day, we have had perfect sunny days and this is a most 
delightful place, so full of life and gaiety, and no end 
of agreeable people. There are many here from 
Chicago, and this morning I met again Gov. U. and 
wife as I was coming out of Cook's office. They are 
running about without much of an object in view. I 
saw them in Cairo a few weeks since, and the Governor 
told me they had just come from Milan, so they are 
pretty closely retracing their steps. 



204] 



XLI 



Nice, March 5. 

To-day, being one of the finest, I took an auto at 
10 A.M. (it should have come at 9:15) and we ran to the 
outskirts of Cannes when a tire burst. I got out and 
walked into town, about one and a half miles, and then 
fearing I might take a wrong road and miss my chauf- 
feur, walked back and had almost reached the place 
where we broke down when he came along. We climbed 
in and ran into Cannes and had lunch at the Hotel 
Splendide, and started again; and just as we were at the 
outskirts of town, bang went our tire again, and here 
we waited three-quarters of an hour to repair it; then 
went on over a lovely high-rolling country and came to 
the town of Grasse perched on a hillside with a long 
narrow street. As we gained the top of a long ascent we 
turned suddenly to the right and plunged down a pre- 
cipitous narrow lane and stopped at Bruno's Parfum- 
erie, where we went in and were shown about the lab- 
oratory ^dth a show or sales room reeking with odors of 
flowers; then to a room with many stills where the 
miracle of extracting the subtle scents from the beau- 
tiful flowers was carried on. This is the central spot of 
the perfumery business ; sixty thousand acres of flowers, 
which yield three million tliree hundred thousand pounds 
of roses and four million four hundred thousand pounds 
of orange blossoms; it takes twenty-five thousand 
pounds of roses to make a litre (about a quart) of es- 

[205 



sence, which brings from four hundred to four hundred 
and fifty dollars in the market. There are thirty-five of 
the manufactories of perfumes in Grasse. After a 
short visit here we started again for Nice by the way of 
the Gorge of the Loup ; but very shortly after starting 
bang went another tire, and then, being without any 
more tires and beyond help, we ran on one rim into Nice, 
the day being virtually spoiled as well as my temper. 

March 6. 

To-day I have remained indoors reading the March 
Scribner's Magazine, which I bought here for 30 cents, 
McClure's and Harper's sell for the same price ; foreign 
dealers do not discriminate in the values as is done in 
America, and right here let me set down that no other 
nation has such a variety or quality in magazines as we 
have in the United States. They have nothing that at 
all takes their place or has the extraordinary merit in 
matter and in illustration that our magazines possess. 
Our magazines are a good thermometer to mark the 
grade of intelligence that distinguishes our people from 
those of foreign nations of the same class. Our farmers 
and mechanics are all far and away beyond the same 
classes here in intelligence, in education, in mode of life. 
We are blest of heaven in a far greater degree than we 
are apt to think of or congratulate ourselves upon, and 
in no way so much as in the education of the masses and 
in the supply of intellectual food that goes toward an 
improvement of the race. 

206] 



XLII 

Nice, March 6. 

I AM beginning this letter the evening before my 
seventy-sixth birthday. I am so far away that I will 
have nothing in the way of gifts, but I shall have some- 
thing that I prize a great deal more, your love. It is 
something so precious to me to know that you are all 
well, happily married, blessed with children of your 
own, above all that you live in our own dear America, 
blessed beyond all peoples of the globe. It is the great 
majority, the masses, that the blessings that our country 
contains affect and uplift. Compare our farmers and 
manufacturers and mechanics with the same classes over 
here and the difference is so great that you cannot imag- 
ine it unless you have carefully noted both conditions. 
We do not half appreciate what we possess in this for- 
tunate point of birth. The majority of foreigners that 
come to our shores have no idea of the value of their 
changed conditions. There should be some educational 
institution established by our country to which these 
people should be sent on landing, where they could be 
instructed as to our laws, our advantages, and the reason 
why they should, be loyal and patriotic, and thus get rid 
of anarchy and its attendant evils. 

Saturday Morning, March 7. 

I presented myself with a little amber cigar-holder 
this morning at breakfast and thus made endurable the 
situation. This return of my birthday leads my thoughts 

[207 



back to my dear father, your honored grandfather. I 
sometimes think it is such a pity that no record remains 
of his oratory, that through this, those that never heard 
him might have some idea of the power he was in the re- 
hgious world; and yet when I come to the careful con- 
sideration of the matter I can see that the man's pres- 
ence, his own individuality, is necessary to give the pun- 
gency, the power to his words. He was remarkable in 
his oratory. Sentiment, poetry, beauty of expression, 
all the flowers of rhetoric were boiled out of him in the 
fierce furnace of Puritanism in which his religious nature 
was cast, and his burden was the salvation of men's 
souls. He looked upon himself as a " brand plucked 
from the burning " for the sole purpose of bearing to 
his fellowmen the message of his Master — " Repent, re- 
pent, before it is altogether too late." He had a great 
loving heart ready for any sacrifice, and yet here he was 
called on by God to deliver this message: " Unless you 
repent and confess to the world, and at once, without any 
delay, you will surely, absolutely, lose your soul and be 
forever damned." From my recollection I should say 
that he never indulged in any flower of speech, never 
quoted any poetry, never modified or softened this mes- 
sage in any way. Knowing your duty as he explained it 
to you, you had no choice ; act you must, at once, or take 
the consequences. There are some men whose person- 
ality is absolutely essential to produce any efl'ect, whose 
text really has no power or inherent strength, like Biyan. 
There are others whose discourse has the ring to it and 

208] 



the force of unanswerable argument, but requires the 
voice of persuasion, the strength of command, the mag- 
netism of eye and expression — ^^such was your grand- 
father. Lincoln and perhaps Castelar possessed such 
rare minds, full of beautiful thoughts, poetical, senti- 
mental, with a world-wide sympathy and a deep under- 
lying sensitiveness to the sorrows of the world, that the 
personal equation was as nothing, and their words move 
us in such a strange and powerful way that we are 
completely taken out of ourselves. Lincoln's speech at 
Gettysburg ; his words as he looks forward to the end of 
liis life, " I hope that when the serene night beckons me 
and I go out into her sweet sheltering darkness, I shall 
bear with me some memories that are not all of earth; 
some pure delights that shall glow through the charmed 
air, soft as her dewy breath and lasting as her stars " ; 
many other of his sayings and writings have no equal, 
no parallel. He is absolutely unique, the one great 
orator America has produced — ^but I am getting far 
away from my birthday. I can look back from this 
point over a long life, wherein pleasure, comfort, con- 
tentment largely predominate, blessed with a disposition 
that did not demand the unattainable, which naturally 
philosophized over the condition, which took the world 
less seriously, with a good constitution in the main, and 
not prone to intemperance in any direction, fortunate in 
taking pleasure in work, and satisfied with half a loaf 
where the whole one was not to be had, favored with 
many firm, loyal friends and with a quantum sufflcit of 
active, sharp-bitted enemies, what more could a man ask? 

[309 



XLIII 

Nice, March 9. 

This morning I took a motor furnished by the hotel 
to make up for the disappointment of last Thursday, 
when the chauffeur did not go where we told him to and 
the motor was such a worn-out thing that we burst three 
tires and came in from Grasse on three legs. To-day we 
had a fine steamer and an excellent driver ; and first went 
to the Gorge de Loup and got out and walked up a 
ravine over a very rough and stony road for a full hour, 
and came to a high but small waterfall. The scenery 
coming up the narrow ravine was quite fine, the moun- 
tains covered with snow were plainly visible at the head 
of the Gorge. Later on when the snow melts rapidly 
the waterfall will be worth the labor of getting up there. 
Besides this they are constructing a fine road for motors 
up the ravine, which will be finished this season. It was 
a thirty-minute walk along this new road back to where 
we had left our car, and then we drove over to Grasse for 
lunch. From Grasse we drove to the new hospital to 
see the three pictures of Rubens that are said to be the 
first he ever painted. The one nearest the altar, the 
" Descent from the Cross," is a wonderful piece of draw- 
ing and a magnificent picture, to me one of the master's 
very best. The next is a picture of several figures life- 
size, but the main one is called " Saint Helena " and is 
supposed to be a portrait of the mother of Constantine. 
The third is called the " Crown of Thorns " and is also 

210] 



a fine picture, not so great as the first but the Christ is 
well drawn and the coloring fine. The first picture 
ought to go to some gallery where the world would have 
a chance to see it. I take it that really very few people 
ever see this. 



[211 



XLIV 

Avignon, March 13. 

My conclusion before leaving" Nice to go by rail to 
Avignon instead of stopping at Marseilles and motor- 
ing from there proved a wise one, as the country after 
a short distance out of Marseilles is low-lying, level, and 
poor land without anything of interest. Leaving Nice 
yesterday morning at ten-twenty, we reached Avignon 
at three-forty p.m.; and I engaged a motor for eighty 
francs to come to the hotel at nine this morning to take 
us through Aries, Nimes, and back to this place. After 
this I visited the Pope's Palace, built in 1316; it was the 
papal seat for sixty-eight years. Seven different Popes 
occupied the palace during these years, then Gregory 
XI moved the outfit to Rome, and I don't blame him if 
the mistral blew then as it did to-day. The palace is a 
huge mass of masonry enclosing a square; it has many 
large high-ceiling rooms with long narrow passages lead- 
ing from the chambers where the Pope slept to the 
chapels. Some of the walls were originally frescoed, 
but the place has been used as a barracks and the walls 
have been whitewashed and but a few fragments remain 
of the decorations. The whole effect is gloomy and for- 
bidding. The Municipality is now at work putting the 
place in good repair, fitting it up for a museum for the 
various collections, for which purpose it will answer 
excellently. 

This morning our motor was promptly on hand and 

212] 



we left for Aries at 9 a.m., burst a tire about midway, 
which was quickly repaired, and we reached Aries at 
eleven ; visited the amphitheatre first ; it is in a fair state 
of preservation ; then passed the remains of the Roman 
theatre; these are only low ruins but show that once it 
was a fine structure. The Venus of Aries now in the 
Louvre in Paris was found here. The amphitheatre was 
built in the first or second century and was at that time 
the largest in France, seating twenty-six thousand per- 
sons. The theatre was begun under Augustus and fin- 
ished in the third century; and its destruction began in 
the fifth, the material being used to build churches. 
There are two beautiful columns, one of Carrara and 
one of Affricano marble, still standing. The theatre 
was richly decorated and numerous works of art were 
found there. Then to the ancient Cathedral of St. Tro- 
phimus, which was founded on the ruins of the Roman 
prsetorium and consecrated in 606 A. D. The portal 
built in the twelfth century is richly decorated; on the 
walls and on each side of the nave and over the arches 
of the transept are some most exquisite tapestries in 
excellent condition. There are small cloisters adjoining. 
The columns supporting the roof stand in groups of two 
with beautiful capitals, all differing in design. 

From here we went to the Musee Arlesien, which 
is principally given up to a display of the costumes and 
impedimenta of the country people of the past, with 
specimens of their manufacturies and works of art. 
Mistral, the poet, presented to this Museum the Nobel 

[213 



Prize of one hundred thousand francs awarded to him 
in 1904. Then we visited the AHscamps, an ancient 
Roman burying ground consecrated for Christian sepul- 
ture by St. Trophimus. In the Middle Ages this ceme- 
tery enjoyed such celebrity that the bodies were brought 
to it from great distances, and Dante mentions it in his 
Inferno, ix, 112. From here we went over a flat coun- 
try to Nimes, a town of about eighty thousand inhabit- 
ants. It lies on the slopes of the hills on the west side 
of the Rhone valley and contains more monuments of 
antiquity than any other town in France. In the heart 
of the city is a magnificent Roman amphitheatre some- 
what smaller than that of Aries but in a much better 
state of preservation ; the repairs have been extensive and 
it is now used for public entertainments, circuses, bull 
fights, etc., etc. It seats twenty-four thousand people. 
Not far from here is the Maison-Carree, the finest and 
best-preserved Roman temple extant at this time. It 
was dedicated in the early part of the first century A.D. 
to Caius and Lucius Caesar, the adopted sons of the 
Emperor Augustus. It was situated in the forum. The 
foundations of other buildings also in the forum are to 
be seen on both sides of it. It was successively used as 
a church, a municipal hall, a warehouse, and a stable ; it 
was well restored in 1824, and since then has been used 
as a museum. It contains a very rich collection of coins 
and medals, most excellently arranged. I noticed in this 
cjllection several of the United States gold coins, which 
were of particular interest to me at this time owing to 

214] 



I 



4 



the depressed condition of my letter of credit. Here 
also is a very beautiful antique mosaic pavement, a 
collection of ancient glass vessels, bronzes, and vessels 
in gold and iron. From here we went to the Jardin de 
la Fountain decorated in the old French style, with three 
monumental fountains with running water, a forest 
garden on the hill with terraces and marble steps and 
railings and altogether a very beautiful public place. 

Then we returned to Avignon, leaving the direct 
road at Remoulins and going off to the north some two 
miles to see the Pont-du-Gard, one of the most impos- 
ing Roman monuments in existence. It forms a part 
of an aqueduct that was twenty-five and a half miles in 
length, built to convey to Nimes the water of two springs 
in the neighborhood of Uzes, and is ascribed to Agrippa, 
son-in-law of Augustus, B. C. 19. The bridge is 880 
feet in length, 160 feet high, and is composed of three 
tiers of arches, each less in width than the one below. 
The first two tiers consist respectively of six and eleven 
arches of equal span (60 feet), the third of thirty-five 
smaller arches. The whole is admirably constructed of 
large stones laid on perfectly dressed beds, no cement 
being used except for the canal on top, which is plas- 
tered throughout its entire length on the inside. This 
aqueduct carried on the upper arches is about three feet 
in width and over six feet in height, which I can swear 
to as I walked through it. It was originally covered 
with slabs of stone, many of which are now in place. 
There are large projecting stones on the face of the 
masonry which were probably used to support plat- 

[215 



forms during construction. The aqueduct was badly 
damaged during the invasion of the fifth century A. D., 
but was only restored in 1855-58. The bridge carried 
along the side for the purpose of a highway was built 
in 1747. 

To-day the mistral has blown a gale and it was very 
trying to be out in it, but we did visit the cathedral in 
the morning and saw a few good paintings by Mignard, 
a local artist of good merit, and also several by Parrocel. 
Also saw the marble throne used by the Popes, a very 
straight -backed uncomfortable affair for anyone but a 
Pope to sit in. The chief object of interest is the 
Gothic tomb in stone of Pope John XXII, a master- 
piece of the fourteenth century. We also visited the 
Musee Calvet, founded by a physician of that name in 
1810. It occupies a fine eighteenth century mansion, 
undoubtedly the doctor's home. It contains a fine 
collection of statuary and pictures ; amongst the former 
is a statue called Eve, a most interesting and excellent 
work of semi-heroic size, showing a most perfectly 
formed nude woman kneeling and playing with a ser- 
pent on the ground, while her face, which is of great 
beauty, is looking upward as if gazing into another face. 
It is as powerful in conception as it is lovely in form 
and feature. 

Among the paintings is an Adoration by Simon de 
Chalons, an Interior by Tenier the Younger, an excel- 
lent Hobbema, and a Ruysdael. Also a Dead Christ by 
Mignard; also a Mazeppa by Vemet wonderfuly well 

done. A small crucifix in ivory was very exquisite. 
SI6] 



o 
z 

H 

6 
6 

O 

2 
H 





TROUBETZKOrS TOLSTOI, LUXEMBOURG/PARIS 



XLV 

Paris, March 16. 

We left Avignon yesterday at 11 a.m. and reached 
Paris at 10 that evening. The country is uninteresting 
until you reach Lyons; from Lyons north for several 
miles the construction of the railway was very expen- 
sive ; the country is very broken and the heavy cuts and 
fills with expensive and lofty viaducts with heavy retain- 
ing walls through the excavations must have brought 
the cost up to startling figures. For example, very soon 
after leaving Lyons you enter a cutting averaging about 
forty feet in depth several miles in length, walled on 
both sides with heavy masonry from top to bottom. 

This morning I went to the picture gallery in the 
Louvre, seeing again with great satisfaction the Mona 
Lisa with her indefinable and never to be duplicated 
smile; the exquisite Corot, one of the great pictures to 
my mind; and took a general survey of many of the 
other rooms. 

Tuesday, March 18. 

I went to the Luxembourg Gallery and had a morn- 
ing to remember. There I found a little statuette in 
dark bronze made by the Russian Prince Paul Troubetz- 
koi, Tolstoi in his farmer's blouse on horseback, evi- 
dently taken from life and in his most common every- 
day situation. It is a rare piece of work; the lines are 
rugged, there is no attempt to delineate clothes or trap- 
pings, the portrait is perfect, the man's poise in the 

[317 



saddle and the horse are all portrayed with wonderfully 
artistic skill. It is one of those things that one some- 
times chances on in a whole life that leaves a most pro- 
found and lasting impression. I shall never forget the 
poise of the head and the intelligence in the ej'^es of that 
little horse, nor the head and figure of Tolstoi. I don't 
know who Prince Troubetzkoi is or was (can he be the 
husband of Amelie Rives?) ; but I do know that he cer- 
tainly is a great artist and he did not have to do any- 
thing but create this little thing to establish the fact. It 
stands up against the wall on the right hand with no 
ostentation, and probably the majority of visitors never 
see it, but it is the particular thing in the Luxembourg 
Gallery for all of that. 

And in speaking of this I am reminded of the Ama- 
zone of Tuaillon in Berlin. This piece of statuary is 
so far and away ahead of anything that I know of, only 
excepting this Tolstoi, that it marks this generation of 
sculptors higher in artistic perfection than any other 
since the Grecian period. The horse of Tuaillon is the 
perfection of animal physique and the Amazone is full 
of grace and strength. The fame of it will be at its 
zenith when all the rest are forgotten; it will live with 
the great things while the thousands of other chipped 
marbles will go to the mortar beds of the builders. These 
two rank with the best in all statuary of this or any 
other age. 



218] 




With Permission of tlie Berlin Pliotographic Co., New York 

AMAZONE. BY LOUIS TUAILLON 



March 22. 

After lunch to-day I took a cab and drove to the 
Pantheon ; and there a talkative little English guide con- 
ducted a crowd of us through the crypt and pointed out 
the tombs of Rousseau, Voltaire, and the one of the 
architect of the building, of whom this guide said that 
he intended that the top of the dome should be 200 feet 
high, but that when the building was completed it 
turned out to be only 194 feet, and he was so vexed about 
it that he committed suicide by throwing himself off 
from the top of the dome, foolish fellow that he was. 
Perhaps it would be justice to conclude that he had un- 
seated his mind by the labor of designing and super- 
vising this magnificent structure. Baedeker says that 
the dome is 272 feet in height and therefore the little 
Englishman must have been mixed on his figures, but 
I don't suppose the slight dijfference of 72 feet would 
particularly affect the result to the young fellow who 
jumped off. 

Returning from the crypt I walked entirely around 
the interior of the hall and looked at the wall decora- 
tions; the panels are now filled either with frescoes or 
tapestries; the best one is near the entrance on the left 
by Bonnat showing the Martyrdom of Saint Denis, a 
man beheaded holding his head in his hands in front of 
him, the head being encircled by a halo ; the drawing of 
the figures is strong and the coloring particularly fine. 
The frescoes by Puvis de Chavannes relating to Saint 
"Genevieve and Attila are all of them interesting. 

[319 



Zola is to be buried here April 2, if the present pro- 
gramme is carried out, and they are preparing the great 
hall for the ceremony. It is to be draped with black 
velvet and the function will undoubtedly be very 
splendid. 

From the Pantheon I went around to the right and 
visited the Chapel of Saint Genevieve, which stands back 
of the Pantheon. It is said to be the finest church in 
Paris in its interior decoration and architectural excel- 
lence. It has a most beautiful pulpit of carved wood 
supported on the shoulders of a giant, a stone bridge 
thrown across the middle of the central aisle with wind- 
ing stairways on each side, all of which are in most 
graceful lines and elaborately carved. The groined 
arches over the centre of the transept are beautifully de- 
signed and there are some fine stained-glass windows, 
and altogether the place is well worth a visit. 

March 26. 

Since writing last not much has been accomplished, 
but I will give a brief resume of each day. Monday 
was warmer, with light showers in the morning; and 
after lunch I went to the Grand Palais to see the ex- 
hibition of Hunters. There were a great many entries, 
most of them by members of the nobility, and I re- 
marked to U., who accompanied me, that " We were so 
damned genteel, as the archbishop's wife said to the 
Queen, that we would soon expire from sheer dignity." 
One count was thrown by his horse stumbling as he came 

220] 



to the water jump, his royal highness going off on a 
tangent into the adjoining shrubbery, from which he 
emerged with his toilette sUghtly disarranged. A small 
chunky heavy-legged bay rather carried off the honors, 
as he strictly attended to business and gave a good clear- 
ance to all the fences and hedges. U. remarked when 
he came on the course that he would bet the little plug 
couldn't jump any. Shows how even a Governor can 
be mistaken. 

The Grand Palais is a very large building (see Mrs. 
Peck's late book for exact dimensions) covered with a 
glass roof, with an extensive arena, with tiers of seats 
all around, making a fine place for all horse or other 
large spectacular exhibitions. From here U. and I went 
over to the great Agricultural Hall of the Old Exposi- 
tion and walked through crowds of people, mostly coun- 
try folks, and saw very many fine cattle and sheep, all 
sorts of agricultural machinery, etc. There must have 
been 20,000 or 30,000 people inside of the building. 
Most extraordinary of all, they had Rheims champagne 
for sale on draught which was very excellent. 

Tuesday I went alone to the Petit Palais; it stands 
directly across the street and fronting the Grand Palais 
and was built expressly for a museum and gallery, and 
is a most beautiful and satisfactory building. I noted 
the following pictures that interested me particularly: 
Gustav Courvet portrait of Prudhomme, shows him at 
full length in his working clothes seated with his 
three children playing about; it looks very natural and 

[331 



charming. A portrait in charcoal of an old man by C. 
Leandre, a very speaking likeness and seemed very ex- 
cellent. A large picture by Gabriel Guay called La 
Grieves (The Vineyard) showing a rocky hillside cov- 
ered with grapevines and nude women lying about in all 
sorts of voluptuous positions, most gorgeously colored, 
with splendid poses and flesh tints; a bold and splendid 
piece of work — this man should be heard from again. 
Pouget Didier has an impressionist showing a brown 
hill covered with gorse in bloom, rich in color; beyond, 
a valley in dark purple; roads leading across the hill in 
front and down until lost in the shadows of the valley; 
a girl and a flock of sheep just going over the brink 
of the hill. The hill on the further side rises up to the 
same height as on this side and then the landscape ex- 
tends a long distance, mostly level, covered with green 
pasturage, and, in the far distance, dimly outhned hills. 
It is a most fascinating picture and for me the gem of 
the collection. I shall be on the lookout for further 
Didiers. Alexander Falginere has a small picture with 
a number of trees in the foreground, and as you look 
through and under the foliage you see a fine mansion 
with the brilliant sunlight streaming over it, a most 
satisfactory canvas. Leon Bonat has a large canvas 
with six or seven life-size figures showing men putting 
a ball and chain on the leg of a priest, very strong and 
realistic. 

The large room devoted to the Ziem Collection is 
full of this master's works. They are all resplendent 

222] 



in coloring, but the one I liked best is a landscape in 
low sombre tints showing a river with forests on one 
side; the shrubbery and the soft, quiet flow of the water 
with the rich brown, the dominating color of the whole 
picture, make it a most lovely thing. The Venetian 
ones are all fine and splendid examples of the artist's 
work. 

March 27. 

I spent this morning at the Louvre, mostly in the 
statuary rooms, and finally went to see the Rembrandts, 
which are now arranged by themselves on a wall having 
a good light ; the small one showing Christ talking with 
the Apostles at Emmaus is remarkably fine, most ex- 
quisite in every way. The splendid portraits are even 
more admirable; it is a wonder the authorities do not 
give these the very best place in the whole Gallery. 
They have also fitted up a most gorgeous room for the 
Rubens " Apotheosis of Marie de Medici," the most 
absurdly egotistical lot of canvases ever made, the worst 
one being " The Espousal," where Henry IV places the 
ring on the finger of Marie. Imagine a great, coarse, 
fat, red-skinned old duffer, naked to the waist, sitting 
on the back of an eagle, with one leg thrown over one 
of its wings, with a gorgeous rich red robe, carelessly 
pulled partly over his ridiculous legs. He looks squatty, 
as if he were sitting in a wheelbarrow. In front of him 
kneels that mountain of flesh, called Marie, with down- 
cast eyes and such a simpering smile, holding out her 
hand for the fat old duffer to put on the ring. Old 

[233 



Henry looks as if he were afraid of falling off the cloud 
while he was getting it on. Rubens must have had many 
a hearty laugh as he painted this monumental caricature. 
It was a rehef after looking at this to pass into another 
room and see the splendid Corots, the Millets, and es- 
pecially to look at the glowing landscape by this latter 
artist which Kenyon Cox so justly and generously ap- 
plauds in the March Scribner. This picture is entirely 
different in every respect from all the others by this 
artist, it quite startles one to come upon it and find out 
who it is by. It is entirely a fancy picture, rich in gor- 
geous coloring, full of lights and shadows, sunshine and 
storm, with a glorious rainbow in the far distance, but 

giving it great strength. 

April 3. 

This morning again at the Luxembourg and noted 
some fine reliefs in silver and bronze by Jules Clement 
Chaplain, D. Dupier, and Augustus St. Gaudens. 
Chaplain's work is exquisite in design, detail, and finish ; 
St. Gaudens' are portraits, one of Cornelius Vanderbilt, 
two of Robert Louis Stevenson, two of St. Gaudens' 
ohildren, and one of Bastien Lepage; the latter and the 
ones of Stevenson struck me as having chief merit. I 
had to look again at Prince Troubetzkoi's little bronze 
statuette; it seemed even more excellent than before. 
The marble statue of Galatea by Laurient Marquest is 
very fine and the pose excellent and the back most ex- 
quisite, one of the very best in my opinion. Thence into 
the rooms of the pictures ; the Gleaners by Jules Breton 

224] 



is rare and satisfactory; the portrait of a Mr. H. by 
Bastien Lepage is masterly; a small landscape by Jean 
Charles Cazin in yellow and light browns is a lovely bit 
in the artist's usual style. Puvis de Chavannes has a 
large picture showing a poor peasant standing in a small 
fishing boat, which rests on the shore, with head bent and 
hands clasped in front, listening no doubt to the An- 
gelus, while his wife and child are on shore amongst 
some flowering plants. There is much sentiment in the 
reverent attitude of the man. Julien Dupre has a young 
girl milking a cow, this is very good; the landscape a 
green lawn with a low house in the background, in the 
door of which stands a woman; the coloring quite fresh 
and the lights and shadows good. One very interesting 
picture by Emile Michel shows a landscape with hills in 
the distance and rolling ground in front covered with 
green bushes on soft brown soil; heavy dark storm clouds 
in the distance ; the effect most satisfying and most fas- 
cinating in its whole make-up. Cazin has a large canvas 
called Ishmael; this shows Hagar and her son in the 
wilderness ; the figures are most pathetic and the whole 
subject displays the quiet, refined, artistic work of this 
delightful artist. Marie Bashkirtseff has only one can- 
vas in this gallery now; this one, a group of street 
gamins, is representative, the faces show careful study 
and an artistic taste that dominated this peculiar genius. 
I was disappointed in the portrait of his mother by 
Whistler; it is noted as his masterpiece and shows a 
plain middle-aged woman, life size, sitting her side 



toward you in a chair; the colors are black and white, 
and to me there was nothing of peculiar interest in it. 
Lucas Disire has an interior of a small cottage, with a 
table on which are some dishes and food; an old man 
stands behind the table facing you, the woman with her 
back towards you but her head partially turned so that 
you get the profile, two small children are sitting at the 
table. The lights and shadows are very well executed 
and the tone and composition show a student of Israel 
and a pupil that that master might be proud of. 



226] 



XLVI 

Paris, April 4. 

The week has passed very rapidly; it has rained 
every day, and I have to confine myself to the Galleries, 
excepting for the two hours that I generally devote to 
walking for exercise. I have kept this up throughout 
my absence when it was possible, and to this I attribute 
the good health I have enjoyed. 

The streets of Paris are always interesting, even on 
rainy days, and so it is not without pleasure to go out 
into the wet; and rain here does not mean what it does 
with us. For the most part it is a sort of mild drizzle 
that is excellent for the farmer. I have been at the 
Luxembourg twice again this week and it is certainly 
a fine collection. I find something of new interest each 
time. Since I was here before they have changed many 
of the pictures, some have gone over to the Louvre to 
make room for new ones, and some that were here I 
have been unable to find elsewhere as yet. I have been 
to-day to a very large exhibition of paintings which is 
called the "Independent Exhibition of Modern Artists." 
It covers acres of ground and miles of walls. As a whole 
it is the worst lot of daubs I ever saw — mostly " impres- 
sionists," and this conveys honors they are not entitled 
to. They have gone mad on the " nude," and of all the 
horrible drawings and infamous combinations of color 
there never was its equal. A very few are good. Where 
an artist sees a lovely bit of nature and from pure love 

[227 



of the beautiful puts what he sees on the canvas, be it 
impressionist or not, the result is agreeable — for in- 
stance, the picture of Millet's that Kenyon Cox men- 
tions in his article in the March Scrihner — ^the result is 
most charming and you never tire of looking at it. 

I wonder if any of you have read the letters of 
Kipling, coming out in Collier's since March 2. I have 
just read them and they are up to his old form. They 
are very interesting. I don't know how long they are 
to run, but three are already in print. I hope you will 
all read them. The French people have been of more in- 
terest to me than ever before. They are a queer lot, with 
all their splurge about Liberty, Equality, and Fra- 
ternity ; they are far from being the people our Ameri- 
cans are. In the first place there is the same vast gulf 
between the poor and the rich as ever there was, it seems 
to me. The poor look sodden and ignorant and dirty, 
they are taxed to death, they live on excitement and 
have a volcano " on tap " all the time. The women are 
worn and ugly, the wages are just above the starvation 
point, and their books, pictures, and papers are light and 
frivolous. They have no general intelligence, and they 
are not happy or contented. I had seen much in the 
papers before I came here of the women cab-drivers and 
that they were competing with the men, to drive them 
out. I have been here now three weeks and in all that 
time I have seen just two women on a cab box, and those 
were great, coarse, middle-aged women with faces like 
one of Zola's hags. It is an interesting sight to be near 

228] 



one of the large manufacturing or business houses at the 
noon hour and see the poorly dressed, thin, sharp-faced 
young girls coming out for their lunch. They rush 
along to the cheap food places, buy a sandwich, a bit of 
bread, or some small cheap thing, and hurry along to 
some place where they can eat it, or devour it as they 
go. I have not seen or heard of any place provided, as 
in our large cities, for this class to take a little rest and 
eat a hearty lunch in quiet and decency. They have 
societies for the care of the dogs, but I don't know of 
any for these poor girls. They spend millions for 
statuary and paintings, on public buildings and fine 
bridges — ^not much for human souls. I sum the thing 
up that France is on the decline, that senility has set in. 
Paris has a death-rate of a little over 1000 a week ; her 
births slightly exceed this. 



XLVII 

Paris, April 10. 

This is one more of the cold, rainy days that I have 
been blessed {?) with since I came to Paris. Yesterday 
and the day before were the only real bright days that I 
have had so far. I am writing what will probably be my 
last family letter, so that if sunny days come again I can 
devote them to seeing some of the outlying things that 
I came here for. Wednesday I went out to " Pere La- 
chaise," the most famous cemetery in Paris. I took my 
guide-book along and found the tombs of so many not- 
ables whose last resting place I was ignorant of before. 
The Tomb of Abelard and Heloise I had seen before, 
and now found that of Rosa Bonheur, Rachel, Casimir 
Perier, Chopin, Cherubini, Prince DemidofF (the 
wealthy Russian who has the finest and most costly monu- 
ment in the cemetery), Alfred de Musset, Lecompte, 
Paul Baudry, Corot, David, Thiers, La Fontaine (who 
wrote the Fables ) , Alphonse Daudet, Hahnemann ( the 
founder of homoeopathy) , and Beranger, and thousands 
of others of more or less note. The grounds contain 
over 100 acres and the tombs and monuments are packed 
in as closely as sardines in a box. The dead keep on 
coming, and I imagine that the " cadavers " are several 
layers in depth. The cemetery was opened early in the 
nineteenth century and I imagine that there has not been 
any epoch in French history for the last 100 years that 
has not contributed some prominent name to the direc- 
tory of this famous burial place. 

230] 



Prominent characters of the Revolution and the vic- 
tims of the Commune, statesmen, poets, painters, princes, 
commoners, and royalists, all are piled in promis- 
cuously, and in this bosom of mother earth find rest and 
repose after the strenuosities of life. Should resurrec- 
tion, in fact, ever be accomplished there would be such a 
pile of rubbish and stone in vast confusion that I doubt 
not that many would be retarded in answering the roll 
call, even if there should be none declared " absent." It 
seems a pity to so overcrowd a sacred place of this kind, 
but it is not so full as the cemetery of Prague, where, as 
the boys will remember, they had carted a great lot of 
the tombstones outside the fence and piled them up, as 
the present inhabitants at that time were five layers in 
depth. Great chance here for some poor devil to hitch 
onto a whole body which was not his before he came 
here. These thoughts are perhaps inappropriate but 
nevertheless come into one's head when he crawls about 
the extremely narrow passages between these tombs and 
headstones. 

Yesterday I went to " Notre Dame." I hadn't been 
there before owing to the dark days. One wants a 
briUiant day to see its interior, for it is very dark and 
gloomy inside. It is a grand building for all that. The 
front loses much of its grandeur owing to the two great 
towers being unfinished, but the sides and rear are very 
fine, with the gargoyles and flying buttresses. The latter 
being in double courses, the upper ones having fine 
reaches in their long spans. The roof is of the same 

[231 



height throughout, across the transept, and the whole 
length of the vast nave, there being no central dome as 
in most of the great minsters. There are double aisles 
on each side of the nave divided by rows of large round 
Norman columns which are, however, connected both 
longitudinally and horizontally by fine pure Gothic 
arches. The interior is thoroughly Gothic and there are 
three large rose windows, one behind the high altar and 
one at each end of the transept, all being very rich in 
stained glass. The other windows are not remarkable. 

There is some fine wood carving on the back of the 
choir stalls and a very elegant iron railing running 
around the choir and altar. 

There are a few monuments but it was too dark to 
get much of an idea of them. From here I went over 
to the law courts, which are in the near distance, and 
in the great hall from which you enter the various 
courtrooms saw a great number of gentlemen carrying 
large leather cases which take the place of the English 
green bag, similar to the one which E. H. A. used to 
encumber himself with when he went about the streets of 
Milwaukee imposing himself on the public as a purveyor 
of English customs without first providing himself with 
English brains. I had to get that dash at A. in memory 
of his " asininity." 

These French lawyers are a fine-looking set of men, 
their black gowns and white lace front pieces (I don't 
know the proper name for them but they look something 
hke a " dickey"), with their black skullcaps, are very 



becoming, and it was interesting studying their intel- 
lectual faces. I saw many of them that I would be 
willing to trust my fate with if I were to be tried for 
murdering some of the people, who I am sure deserve 
it. There were some fine grey-headed men who had that 
air of knowing themselves and of conscious power whom 
you wanted to look at more than once. Really there is 
no more interesting study than that of the " genus 
homo." Inside of the open court of this law building 
is the " Sainte Chapelle " ; this was built by St. Louis in 
the twelfth century for the reception of the sacred relics 
brought back from the Crusades in 1239 A. D. The 
relics are now in Notre Dame. It is now a show place, 
service being held here only once a year. I may de- 
scribe it in a few words by saying that it is a gem of 
Gothic architecture. It is quite small, two stories, one 
chapel under another. The floors are mosaics and the 
walls are colored in blue, red and gold, and it looks like 
a jewel-box. The thing that interested me the most 
was a little window built into the side, about a foot 
square and much above one's head, and put in on an 
angle of some 30 degrees, and which was made so that 
that old scamp of a king, Louis Eleventh, could remain 
out of sight and outside the chapel and yet hear the 
service and see that his priest performed his duties with 
due regard to his master's views on all religious as well 
as secular matters. I take it that when Louis caught 
the old official in any lapse as to the situation he merely 
played John the Baptist with him before he lunched, and 

[333 



looked about for a gentleman of better judgment. I 
don't say he did this but he was fully up to it. 

I am devoutly praying that we may have some fine 
days, for I want to visit Rheims, Chantilly, St. Germain, 
and possibly Blois, but there is no doing any of these 
in the rain. They have had a very dry winter in France 
and all the farmers and priests were praying for rain, 
and now, as is usually the case, they have overdone it 
and it does nothing but rain for a month. It is very 
risky tampering with Providence. This is very apt to 
be my last weekly letter for if it clears up I shall devote 
no more time to letter-writing, and you won't have to be 
paying out postage to distribute my weak documents 
around the country to my heirs and assigns. 

Please all rise up and call me blessed. I don't have 
to cross the channel to take my ship. 

I have just heard from the agent of the Atlantic 
Transport Line that the Minneapolis is not to make the 
trip as advertised and I have engaged my stateroom on 
the White Star Steamer Oceanic^ sailing from Cher- 
bourg April 22, and therefore can continue my sight- 
seeing up to the morning of the 22nd, when I shall go to 
Cherbourg. 

You will have to excuse the unusual mediocrity of 
this effusion, for I haven't much to write about and have 
interpolated innocuous remarks about immaterial men 
and things merely as padding to fill out the regular 
sheets. 



234] 



XLVIII 

Paris, April 14. 

To-day I took the subway, called the " Metropoli- 
tan " here, and in ten minutes was at the Station Etoile, 
at the Arc de Triomphe; there I changed and took the 
steam tram for Malmaison and went up to the chateau 
that was the home of the Empress Josephine. It is a 
perfectly plain stone house, two stories and a basement, 
surrounded on the rear and two ends by a dry moat. It 
has a long front facing the entrance gate. You enter a 
square room that was for the guards, from which you 
go first to the left to a good-sized dining-room, then into 
a reception room, and then to the library, which was a 
very homelike, pleasant room with bookcases all around 
the sides with glass doors. This room has the writing 
desk, chairs, and furniture, all as originally used by the 
great general. On the right side of the guardroom are 
the rooms used by the Empress, salon, music room with 
the harp she used to play on, music stand, etc. Upstairs 
the ceilings are low; the bedrooms, dressing and bath- 
rooms all en suite, with the bed Josephine died on; the 
camp equipage used by the Emperor. The whole place 
struck me as being so comfortable, cozy, and homelike 
that I could not but feel a tender regard for the man 
who fitted it up to spend his private hours in, with the 
woman he truly loved as his sole companion. The 
grounds surrounding the chateau are not extensive but 
very pretty and tastefully laid out. It struck me as 

[235 



queer that this name has never been changed; in the 
olden times this was a place of such evil repute that they 
gave it the appropriate name *' bad house " that has 
stuck to it through all the centuries. The Spanish 
Queen Maria Christiana owned it and lived in it for 
many years, then it came into the hands of the Govern- 
ment, and it is now kept as a show place for the collection 
of Napoleonic relics. 

After an hour's visit here I took the tram again and 
went on for forty-five minutes further to Saint Ger- 
main to see the large and imposing chateau there. lu 
the twelfth century a fortress stood on the spot now oc- 
cupied by the chateau; then it was destroyed and a 
chateau was built, and finally Louis XIV came into 
possession of it and he added to it, but finally he con- 
cluded that it was not big enough for him and he built 
Versailles ; then the building was neglected and fell into 
a sad condition and remained so until a few years ago, 
when the French Government took it in hand and within 
the last two years completed the restorations on the 
original plan, and now have made a museum of it in 
which is a most famous and probably the largest collec- 
tion of all sorts of things pertaining to the stone, iron, 
and copper ages. Some very curious reproductions in 
miniature of the houses and burying-places of these 
ancient folk occupy the floors of several of the rooms. 
The chateau is irregular in shape, being four-sided, but 
wider at one end than at the other, with a wide deep 
moat all around it. A chapel breaks the regularity on 

236] 



one side and on another side two large towers with cas- 
tellated tops, gargoyles, and a fine stone gateway. The 
stairways are interesting in being all covered by groined 
arches built of brick, the rooms are also roofed in a 
similar manner. It is five stories in height and a very 
stately and imposing structure. The buildings of the 
village suri'ound it closely on two sides, while the other 
two open on the vast park and forest which contains 
some eleven thousand acres, that stretch across an almost 
level plateau that lies at an elevation of some two hun- 
dred feet above the River Seine, which bounds the park 
on the east. The extensive views from the terrace on 
the side next the river are very fine, as one can see for 
many miles up and down the river and for a long, long 
distance beyond. 



[237 



XLIX 

Paris, April 15. 

I WENT to Rheims to-day. The English and Ameri- 
cans spell it Rheims and pronounce it as it is spelt; the 
French spell it Reims and pronounce it Ranee; and 
there you are, take your choice. 

Whenever you go, and this is information that is use- 
ful, and I wish all to profit by my experience, you should 
go so as to arrive at Rheims by ten o'clock a.m. ; take a 
carriage and drive to the Pommery Champagne Caves ; 
go into the manager's office, and you will meet a very 
kind and affable gentleman, and if you have the appear- 
ance of being a gentleman or a lady, he will assign you 
a guide who speaks nothing but French but who will 
show you things that are worth seeing, amongst which 
are a portion of the twelve miles of caves tunnelled in 
the solid chalk rock (this was at one time an old chalk 
quarry), all lighted by electricity, beautifully clean and 
sweet. You will descend 116 steps to reach the floor of 
the cave ; you will see three million bottles of champagne 
and as much more in barrels and huge casks ; men turn- 
ing the bottles over, nine thousand for each man per 
day; others opening the bottles and taking out a small 
quantity, while other men put in each bottle a tiny dipper 
full of rock sugar syrup to supply the sugar of the 
grape that the wine has destroyed. Continental Europe 
does not favor dry or unsweetened wine, whereas the 
wild, woolly Westerners prefer the dry wine, as they do 
not like an after-dinner headache. You will see a large 

238] 



number of women working fine silvered wire into shape 
for putting on the neck of the bottle for holding the 
cork in; men drawing off the cured wine into bottles; 
and you will also see to your amazement four large 
reliefs in heavy frames, made of stucco and hung on the 
great walls of the cave, splendidly executed, showing 
bacchanalian scenes that champagne makes possible and 
very probable for those who curb not an unholy appetite. 
The buildings above ground are extensive, well built, 
and show the extent and profit of the business. It is 
simply immense and appalling. Have your carriage 
wait for you at the gate, you will be about an hour and 
a quarter in the establishment; then drive to the Hotel 
Lion d'Or, it is just across the street from the famous 
cathedral ; order your lunch, this you do by going to the 
clean kitchen where you will find laid out in an appetiz- 
ing way a variety of meats, fish, game, and vegetables ; 
you select what you like and by the time you have parted 
your back hair and used your powder puiF, your lunch 
will be ready. You have never eaten a better one and 
you never will. Double-star it in your mental Baedeker. 
If you eat with due economy of time you can go across 
the street, see the cathedral on the outside first, then 
walk in and go down the long high-arched aisles, look at 
the old and famous Flemish tapestries, some better than 
others, notice the stained-glass windows, particularly the 
two in the royal chapel, one in a light bluish tone, tlie 
other in a soft brown, and fix them in your memory, as 
you won't see any others like them, and very few that 
are their equal in beauty and design. Notice the height 

[239 



of the ceilings, of the splendid aisles, the lovely Gothic 
arches of the clerestories, the unique but graceful capi- 
tals of the supporting columns. 

As you leave the cathedral particularly notice the 
equestrian statue of Joan of Arc in bronze which stands 
in the open square south of the transept, there is no 
other its equal in France or in my opinion anywhere 
approaching it. After you have satisfied your soul with 
this grand and imposing structure, drive to the Church 
of Saint Remy, really it is entitled to be called a cathe- 
dral. The outside is in no way great, but when you enter 
it you are conscious that you are in a building most 
satisfactory and imposing. Notice the low-roofed aisles, 
the Flemish tapestry, the fine tomb of Saint Remy be- 
hind the altar, the stained glass in the rose windows and 
in the centre window of the apse, the beautiful screens 
made of fine Italian marbles. The low ceiHngs of the 
aisles suggest cloisters and the perspective of their long 
distances is particularly fine. Take time enough to im- 
press Saint Remy on your mind, for it is a famous place, 
and then drive to your railway station, for it should be 
about time, if you wish to reach Paris before dark. Your 
cab will cost you two francs per hour and as you ride 
back to " gay Paree," you will if you are a creature of 
taste and discernment conclude that you have enjoyed a 
day of unalloyed pleasure and profit, full of new experi- 
ences and emotions, just as I did. The delicious lunch 
that you had at the Lion d'Or, provided you selected 
your menu with judgment, will have cut no small figiu'e 
in leading you to this conclusion. 

240] 



Paris, April 18, 1908. 

The past week has been a very delightful one owing 
to having good weather, and I have been out to Rheims, 
Chantilly, Malmaison, and St. Germain, all of them 
most interesting, Chantilly and Malmaison particularly 
so. I had supposed that the chateaux of the Loire coun- 
try were the finest in France but the Conde Chateau at 
Chantilly " lays over them " all in magnificence of 
grounds and exterior, and the interior is in every way 
far beyond any of them in its splendid collections of 
paintings and books and rare bric-a-brac. All of the 
finest masters have canvases here and the Gallery is 
next in interest to the Louvre. You may get an idea in 
a mild way of the thing when I tell you that there is a 
Raphael there that cost $125,000, and another that cost 
$50,000. No expense seemed too great for this collector 
to pay if the thing was worth the price. There is a 
collection of miniatures, said to be the finest in the 
world. The Great Conde diamond is there, it is a stone 
of wonderful brilliancy, of a singular yellowish-purple 
color, heart-shaped, and I suppose worth more than a 
hundred thousand dollars. 

There is a mosaic floor brought from Herculaneum, 
of rare beauty and finer than anything I have ever seen. 
There is an old Japanese bronze vase, some 8 feet high, 
that is a wonder, it is most magnificently decorated. 
The grand staircase with a polished steel handwrought 

[241 



railing is one of the most beautiful things in blacksmith 
work that you will find in all of Europe, distinctively a 
work of art. There is also a collection of Tanagras that 
are worth a fortune. There is a library of over 13,000 
volumes, besides great cases of magnificent bindings 
and another with an immense number of portfolios of 
rare and expensive drawings of all of the old masters. 
I have some photographs of the place to show you when 
I see you. The grounds are very extensive and laid out 
most beautifully, and on the grounds is the great stable, 
built to accommodate 260 horses, a perfect palace of a 
place built of solid stone, the roof also of solid stone, 
being a single arch of 90 foot span and about 50 feet 
from the floor to the keystone. The facades are richly 
decorated by splendid groups of marble statuary. The 
chateau and contents with the stable and the extensive 
forest and parks were all bequeathed to the Institut de 
France by the Duke Henri d' Aumale, the fourth son of 
Louis Philippe, the heir to the last of the Condes at his 
death in 1897. 

It is singular that so few people visit Chantilly, when 
it is one of the most important objects of interest in the 
environs of Paris, and only twenty-five miles by rail 
from the city. 

Do not think that you have done the Louvre unless 
you have climbed the many long flights of steps that 
take you to the third floor of this immense building and 
found your way into the small hall that is filled with 
masterpieces of the Barbison School, Millets, Corots, 

242] 



Diaz, Daubigny, Rousseau, Fromentin, Meissonier, 
Troyon, they are worth coming across the Atlantic to 
see. One by Millet, a woman standing in front of two 
men who are binding the grain, a wonderful study in 
brown; a Troyon showing a drove of cattle, passing a 
flock of sheep ; several lovely Corots with those exquisite 
trees that stand out from the picture so that it seems 
that you could pass between them and the landscape be- 
hind; several Meissoniers, exquisite in their delicate 
handling and painted with such care and yet with such 
a sure touch. You can spend hours in this small room 
and go away with regrets that you cannot carry away 
with you the memory of the beauties of each individual 
picture. Your education in art will have been greatly 
refreshed and improved by this study of this French 
School that will enhance your appreciation of the beau- 
tiful in nature as seen by the eyes of men in love with 
her and who possessed the great gift of placing before 
you in glowing colors what they saw. It is well for you 
to take a day off from the Galleries that you may again 
and again bring before your mind's eye the images of 
what you have seen until the impress of them is fastened 
in your brain. It is a great privilege to have an oppor- 
tunity of this kind to study the masters of this school, 
comparing one with the other; and when you are able 
at first glance to say who painted this or that picture, 
then you may conclude that you are advanced in your 
education in art. 

And now this Saturday night brings with it thoughts 

[243 



not without regret of how much more I might have writ- 
ten in these letters, covering nearly eleven months of 
continual travel; regrets that my education has been so 
limited that I have not only missed much, but that what 
I have seen has not been made the most of ; regrets that 
this has been my last opportunity to see the treasures of 
the Old World, and that I have probably not made the 
most of this opportunity. On the other hand I have 
great cause for thanksgiving that at my age I have been 
able to journey such long distances, see so much with 
pleasure and without weariness, to have enjoyed unin- 
terrupted good health, and to have set down so much 
that even though poorly done will serve to remind me 
of the things I have seen and done and to enrich the re- 
maining days of my life, and perhaps give pleasure to 
some of my most intimate friends. The trip is drawing 
to a close, and what is written is written; whatever the 
faults, they must abide. 



FINIS. 



244] 



,1 1 Ci< 

b i 




.^' 



0' 



.0- 













A 



.*'\ 




•~ .r 






,/. 



^°-;^, 






4 o^ 







r. « * ,0 











A .. " » * <5». 




.0 








V 




A 





c 




'b V 



^°-^^, 



^ 



.^' 



,0- 




0' 




'.V ^. 








*o. 




'bv 



-^ 










^^-^^^ 




o 




<<Jv . o * » 







4< 





















'^ c<^ 



'^n^ 





■^0^ 




-oV 



.<^' 



A 









^^--^ 


















V -^^ %> 

A 






^1 




"^ 












A 



^ 



C^ 






'^^ 






.^' 



A 








.-^'^ 



aV 






^^ JAN 79 K-^ "^ ^ , 

Shi N. MANCHESTER, WC^ - "^ V ^ ' 

INDIANA 46962 _ii«?v„ • n, _ 










A 



.\' 



.0. 



